THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


.-yl   ' 


EDITED  UNDER  THE  DIRECTION   OF  THE 

MISSIONARY  EDUCATION  MOVEMENT 

OF  THE  UNITED   STATES  AND  CANADA 


THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 


N.  B. — Special  helps  and  denominational  mission  study  literature  for 
this  course  can  be  obtained  by  corresponding  with  the  Secre- 
tary of  your  mission  board  or  society. 


RKY.  T.  O.   DOUC.LASS,  OK   IOWA 
Veteran  home  missionary  statesman  and  administrator 


THE  NEW 
HOME  MISSIONS 

AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THEIR 
SOCIAL    REDIRECTION 


BY 


HARLAN  PAUL  DOUGLASS 

AUTHOR  OF  "CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 
IN  THE  SOUTH" 


NEW  YORK 

MISSIONARY   EDUCATION    MOVEMENT 

OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  CANADA 

1914 


Copyright,  1914,  by 

MISSIONARY  EDUCATION  MOVEMENT  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES  AND  CANADA 


;BV 


TO 
MY  FATHER  AND  MOTHER 


CONTENTS 


Preface xi 

«»        I  Home  Missions  as  the  Geographical  Expansion  of  the 

#  Church 3 

II     From  Social  By-product  to  Social  Aim 31 

cj      III     An  Adequate  Program  for  the  Country 61 

IV    The  City  and  the  Stranger 93 

5?        V     Social  Knowledge  and  Social  Justice 129 

in 

VI  A  Social  Restatement  of  Race  Problems       .     .     .     .     157 
o 

VII  The  Social  Reaction  of  Home  Missions  upon  the  Church     191 

VIII  Social  Realization  of  Christianity  in  America     .      .      .     225 

cJ  Bibliography 251 

Index 259 

O 
O 
00 

ui 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Rev.  T.  O.  Douglass Frontispiece 

Horse  Power  and  Hand  Power 12 

The  Itinerant 26 

Rev.  Peter  Cartwright 32 

A  Strong  Village  Church 72 

Le  Moyne  Institute,  Memphis,  Tennessee 82 

Rural  and  Urban  Population 94 

Labor  Temple 102 

Bulletin-Board  of  a  Down-Town  Church,  New  York    .     .     .  106 

Total  Immigration  by  Decades no 

Rev.  Josiah  Strong 132 

A  Group  of  Chinese  Children,  San  Francisco 162 

Young  Men  of  a  Japanese  Mission,  Portland,  Oregon  .      .     .  166 

An  Overchurched  Rural  Community 200 

Rev.  Charles  L.  Thompson 208 

Secretarial  Council  on  the  Commission  of  the  Church  and  Social 
Service  of  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in 

America 216 


PREFACE 

Home  missions  as  understood  by  this  book  are  a 
group  of  activities  attempting  to  Christianize  the 
United  States,  and  carried  on  by  the  Churches  as 
such. 

There  are  manifold  other  agencies  working  for  the 
same  end,  but  not  ecclesiastically  organized.  Such 
are  the  great  national  non-sectarian  allies  of  the 
Church  like  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association; 
such  are  the  multitudinous  philanthropic  agencies  of 
general  scope.  These  grow  out  of  but  do  not  di- 
rectly represent  the  Church.  Home  missions  on  the 
contrary  are  the  churches  themselves  at  their  task 
of  redeeming  our  nation. 

Home  missions,  again,  operate  as  agencies  of  the 
churches  collectively.  This  contrasts  them  with  the 
activities  of  single  parishes,  which  though  similar  are 
unrelated  to  each  other.  The  home  missionary  units 
may  be  city,  district,  state,  denomination,  or  nation, 
but  they  are  always  ecclesiastical  group-activities  car- 
ried on  through  agencies  of  which  the  Mission  Board 
is  the  type. 

Naturally,  agencies  in  which  the  churches  act  col- 
lectively will  concern  themselves  primarily  with  gen- 
eral problems  rather  than  local,  and  particularly  with 

ri 


xii  PREFACE 

problems  of  national  significance  and  dimension.  Most 
typically  then  home  missions  express  the  social  and 
spiritual  consciousness  of  the  churches  in  matters  of 
nation-wide  concern  which  can  best  be  handled  col- 
lectively by  churches  acting  in  larger  units,  as  when 
the  board  has  some  national  responsibility  for  its 
denomination. 

All  this  is  necessary  for  precision,  but  is  simply 
a  long  way  of  saying  that  home  missions  mean  very 
largely  the  Christian  work  of  the  denominational  mis- 
sionary boards  operating  in  the  United  States. 

The  importance  of  discrimination  within  the  realm 
of  agencies  operating  for  the  redemption  of  America 
is  seen  at  once  when  it  is  expressed  in  terms  of  the 
division  of  financial  support.  Thus  the  officially  re- 
ported benevolent  giving  of  a  representative  denomi- 
nation (apart  from  the  home  expenses  of  local  par- 
ishes) approximates  $2,400,000  annually.  This  total 
roughly  divides  as  follows: 

To  foreign  missions  carried  on  through  general 
Church  agencies  25  per  cent. 

To  home  missions  carried  on  through  general 

Church  agencies  25  per  cent. 

To  other  benevolences  under  denominational  aus- 
pices, chiefly  local  25  per  cent. 

To  other  than  denominational  benevolences 25  per  cent. 

A  book  on  home  missions  in  the  broadest  sense 
might  tell  the  story  of  the  three  fourths  of  the  above 
total  which  is  devoted  to  the  redemption  of  our  own 
country.  In  the  narrowest  sense  it  would  have  to 


PREFACE 


xui 


confine  itself  to  the  one  fourth  which  is  officially  rec- 
ognized as  the  work  of  boards  of  general  jurisdiction. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  this  book  takes  a  middle  course. 

It  is  not  confined  strictly  to  the  activities  of  mission- 
ary boards,  but  considers  them  in  connection  with  the 
large  movement  of  the  social  application  of  Chris- 
tianity as  inspired  and  in  the  general  sense  directed 
by  the  Church.  On  the  other  hand,  it  does  not  pre- 
sume to  claim  for  home  missions  as  such  the  vast 
social  consequences  of  American  Christianity. 

The  seepage  and  flow  of  the  Christian  spirit  through 
the  underground  crevices  and  channels  of  society  is 
beyond  charting  or  measurement.  Home  missions 
name  a  particular  set  of  pumps  and  engines,  which 
raise  and  distribute  this  flow  through  a  particular  sys- 
tem of  pipes  and  sluices  upon  particular  areas,  using 
a  technical,  intensive  method.  They  do  not  convey  all 
the  water  which  gets  to  these  particular  areas.  Some 
rains  down  out  of  the  general  atmosphere  of  Ameri- 
can Christianity ;  other  is  pulled  up  by  capillarity  and 
its  moisture  conserved  at  the  surface  by  methods 
of  moral  cultivation  of  which  home  missions  are  only 
one.  Once  its  flow  is  turned  upon  the  land  it  mixes 
immediately  with  all  the  waters.  The  harvest  is  the 
result  of  all  the  forces  operating. 

Home  missions  are  thus  but  part  of  a  greater  proc- 
ess— and  this  is  the  assurance  of  their  success.  We 
may,  however,  note  their  precise  methods  and  areas, 
and  the  superiorities  of  results  where  the  social  spirit 
is  directed  by  home  missions  over  those  which  depend 


3dv  PREFACE 

on  the  meteorological  accident  of  Christianity  as  the 
general  moral  climate  of  America.  Certain  crops 
grow  only  under  missionary  irrigation  and  the  yield 
is  always  greater  for  all  crops  when  home  missions 
assist  in  their  cultivation.  In  other  words,  home  mis- 
sions are  an  efficient  and  dependable  process  of  social 
salvation  in  which  the  social  spirit  has  become  definite, 
purposeful,  adaptive,  and  accurate. 

Not  only  does  this  book  not  confine  itself  to  the 
social  service  activities  of  the  home  missionary  agen- 
cies as  such,  but  it  is  not  primarily  concerned  with 
activities  at  all.  It  does  not  so  much  treat  of  the  new 
things  which  are  being  done  as  the  expression  of 
the  social  spirit,  as  of  the  new  spirit  in  which  all 
things  are  being  done.  Its  deepest  interest  is  in  ten- 
dencies and  their  interpretation,  not  in  describing  par- 
ticular facts.  Consequently  it  omits  from  formal  treat- 
ment a  great  many  interesting  and  important  phases 
of  social  home  missions.  Only  enough  are  introduced 
reasonably  to  illustrate  and  amplify  the  general  move- 
ment in  its  chief  fields  of  expression. 

Finally,  the  book  strives  to  give  a  unified  impres- 
sion of  the  great  process  whereby  home  missions  are 
being  made  over  again  inwardly  without  interference 
with  their  old  functions.  This  is  the  most  marvelous 
aspect  of  their  social  redirection.  It  is  like  the 
building  of  the  new  Grand  Central  Station  in  New 
York  City.  Its  miracle  is  not  that  it  finally  stands 
complete — a  gigantic  feat  of  engineering  and  archi- 
tecture— but  that  it  was  built  without  interruption  of 


PREFACE  xv 

traffic.  On  this  spot  stood  a  vast  material  creation  do- 
ing a  million-handed  work  of  moving  human  beings 
and  goods.  Now  its  place  has  been  taken  by  a  ten 
times  vaster  one  different  in  every  detail.  There  was 
a  new  motive  power,  electricity;  a  new  social  tech- 
nique of  admitting  and  discharging  the  human  ebb 
and  flow  of  a  metropolis;  new  problems  of  subter- 
ranean engineering,  and  new  ideals  of  civic  beauty. 
All  these  were  wrought  into  this  mighty  pile  through 
a  series  of  years — yet  all  the  while  its  trains  kept  run- 
ning. In  and  out  they  dodged  and  twisted,  hundreds 
upon  hundreds  every  day,  and  day  after  day,  past 
stone  heap  and  under  massive  girder,  not  without 
makeshift  and  inconvenience,  but  always  on  the  tracks. 
The  station  kept  on  serving  while  experiencing  com- 
plete reconstruction.  It  was  the  Grand  Central  all 
the  time  from  old  to  new.  This  same  fact  of  radical 
transformation  without  interruption  of  traffic  is  the 
clue  to  the  home  missionary  story  as  the  following 
pages  try  to  tell  it.  The  old  home  missions  have  be- 
come the  new  home  missions  and  the  work  has  gone 
right  on. 

New  York,  N.   Y., 
June  3,  1914. 

HARLAN  PAUL  DOUGLASS. 


HOME  MISSIONS  AS  THE  GEOGRAPHICAL 
EXPANSION    OF   THE    CHURCH 


CHAPTER    I 

HOME  MISSIONS  AS  THE  GEOGRAPHICAL  EXPAN- 
SION  OF  THE  CHURCH 

"The  Regions  Beyond."  Some  thirty  years  ago  a 
child  was  growing  up  in  a  minister's  home  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi Valley — into  some  such  understanding  as  this : 
Home  Missions  are  a  process  which  begins  in  New 
England  and  ends  in  the  "regions  beyond."  Here  we 
are  in  the  Central  West ;  a  little  while  ago  our  church 
was  receiving  missionary  aid ;  that  is,  somebody  "back 
East"  sent  money  through  the  board  to  help  pay  the 
preacher's  salary.  We  tried  as  hard  as  we  could  to 
come  to  "self-support"  in  order  that  people  "back 
East"  might  be  free  to  send  more  of  their  money  to 
the  "regions  beyond."  After  a  little  our  state  would 
be  able  to  help  all  the  weak  churches  in  it,  and  the 
people  "back  East"  might  send  all  their  money  to  the 
"regions  beyond."  Later  we  ourselves  would  be  send- 
ing money  to  the  "regions  beyond."  Then  the  regions 
just  beyond  would  doubtless  repeat  the  process. 
Finally  the  church  and  Sunday-school  would  be  every- 
where and  presumably  the  job  would  be  done. 

Expansion  Westward.  Now  this  child's  naive  under- 
standing of  the  "regions  beyond"  scarcely  escaped  be- 

3 


4  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

ing  profound,  for  the  consciousness  of  them  was  the 
clue  to  his  nation's  history  of  that  time.  Home  mis- 
sions were  an  aspect  of  national  expansion  westward. 
They  were  the  religious  version  of  the  geographical 
occupancy  of  the  continent.  They  were  migrant  Chris- 
tianity ever  camping  on  the  trail  of  empire  and  con- 
quering for  ideals  what  the  pioneer  conquered  for 
the  nation ;  redeeming  from  materialism  and  vice  what 
he  redeemed  from  forest,  swamp,  empty  prairie,  and 
roving  savage. 

Significance  of  the  West.  The  West  was  a  state  of 
society,  not  an  area.  It  was  the  bending  of  old  insti- 
tutions and  ideals  under  the  influences  of  free  land, 
the  remolding  of  habits  by  free  environment.  It  was 
the  breaking  up  of  custom  and  its  reestablishment  with 
a  difference.  The  West  was  not  the  frontier,  but 
rather  the  chaotic  state  left  just  behind  an  ever-retiring 
frontier  and  the  effort  to  organize  it.  As  fast  as 
this  was  done  the  West  passed  on,  leaving  a  belt  of 
population  suddenly  aged  and  like  older  parts  of  the 
nation;  yet  always  leaving  also  an  ampler  and  freer 
spirit.  Thus  "decade  after  decade,  West  after  West, 
this  rebirth  of  American  society  has  gone  on,  has  left 
its  traces  behind  it  and  has  reacted  on  the  East."  l 
Less  by  imitation  than  by  domination  and  free  adapta- 
tion, the  West  has  been  assimilated  to  the  nation  and 
assimilated  the  nation  to  itself. 

Landmarks  of  Western  Expansion.  It  will  be  a 
sufficient  initial  background  for  our  study  of  the  home 

1  Turner,  "Problem  of  the  West,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  78:  p.  289. 


MISSIONS    AS    EXPANSION   OF   CHURCH     5 

missionary  movement,  to  recall  the  chief  landmarks 
of  westward  expansion  before  1830;  (i )  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  national  domain  west  to  the  Mississippi 
under  the  ordinance  of  1787,  and  its  vast  enlargement 
by  the  Louisiana  purchase  (1803)  and  the  Florida 
purchase  (1819);  (2)  the  westward  movement  of 
population  which  increased  the  scarce  100,000  people 
of  the  trans- Alleghany  states  of  1790  to  over  three 
and  a  half  million  by  1830,  making  them  a  large  quar- 
ter of  the  nation  and  giving  Ohio  alone  more  people 
than  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  combined;  (3) 
the  pressing  back  of  the  Indians  by  war  and  treaty  and 
the  facilitation  of  settlement  by  the  building  of  roads 
and  waterways,  by  the  use  of  the  steamboat  on  west- 
ern rivers,  the  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal  and  by  the 
liberal  land  policy  of  the  government;  and  (4)  the 
admission  of  states,  Kentucky  1792,  Tennessee  1796, 
Ohio  1803,  Louisiana  1812,  Indiana  1816,  Mississippi 
1817,  Illinois  1818,  Alabama  1819,  and  Missouri 
1821. 

The  Crucial  Dates.  Between  1830  and  1835  a  re- 
markable group  of  forces  came  to  focus.  The  West 
of  that  time  was  politically  in  the  saddle  through  the 
election  of  Andrew  Jackson  as  President;  the  first  rail- 
road was  building;  settlement  had  touched  the  Missis- 
sippi River  in  the  Northwest ;  the  Webster-Hayne  de- 
bates had  formulated  the  sectional  policies  of  the 
North  and  South;  the  agricultural  differentiation  of 
the  Northwest  from  the  empire  of  cotton  was  estab- 
lished; prairie  farming  and  the  agricultural  revolu- 


6  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

tion  in  the  North  through  machinery  were  just  at 
hand;  and  the  definite  reservation  of  the  whole  na- 
tional domain  for  the  genuine  settler  scarcely  a  dec- 
ade away.  Finally  the  era  of  actual  colonization  in 
the  Pacific  Northwest  was  beginning,  and  with  it  the 
consciousness  that  the  entire  continent  was  destined 
to  be  covered  by  American  homes.1  These  mighty 
and  all  but  coincident  changes  mark  the  period  after 
1835  as  essentially  different  from  the  preceding  one. 

Two  Phases.  This  date  divides  also  the  two  eras 
of  the  older  home  missions.  Since  the  West  was  never 
long  in  one  place  and  since  the  later  West  enjoyed 
the  results  of  advancing  civilization,  and  could  now 
attack  the  wilderness  with  machinery  rather  than 
with  the  ax;  and  since  it  shared  the  development  of 
the  nation,  particularly  in  its  diverse  sectional  evolu- 
tion, religious  evolution  naturally  divides  into  two 
phases:  (i)  a  preliminary  or  pioneer  phase  com- 
pleted while  the  frontier  was  still  substantially  homo- 
geneous, and  (2)  a  characteristic  phase  in  which 
home  missions  minister  to  the  home-making  and  com- 
munity-building farmer.  His  type,  moreover,  subdi- 
vides with  the  economic  and  sectional  diversification 
of  American  life. 

Preliminary  Phase.  The  object  of  the  preliminary 
home  missions  was  the  pioneer;  their  agent,  the  it- 
inerant preacher ;  their  method,  the  revival.  The  pio- 
neer was  a  man  who  attempted  single-handed  or  in 
small  groups  the  conquest  of  the  Western  wilderness 

1  Schaf er,  History  of  Pacific  Northwest,  145. 


MISSIONS    AS    EXPANSION    OF   CHURCH     7 

— a  task  which  could  only  be  accomplished  thoroughly 
and  finally  by  a  considerable  population  using  ma- 
chinery and  advanced  organization. 

A  Surviving  Pioneer.  One  understands  him  best 
by  going  to  see  him.  One  finds  him  persisting  in  the 
Southern  Appalachian  or  the  Ozark  highlands.  There 
one  may  visit  one  of  his  "contemporary  ancestors" — 
a  farmer,  he  calls  himself.  He  lives  in  a  log  cabin 
in  a  clearing  of  perhaps  two  acres  on  a  stony  Ozark 
hillside.  His  equipment  consists  of  a  hoe,  an  ax, 
and  a  gun.  He  owns  no  work  animal,  possesses  no 
farming  implements,  farms  without  wheels.  Forest 
and  stream  still  help  largely  to  furnish  his  larder. 
With  his  ax  he  clears  his  land,  builds  his  house,  and 
makes  most  of  its  meager  furniture.  A  hundred  years 
ago  thousands  of  men  like  this  one  thronged  the  Na- 
tional Highway  from  Pennsylvania  westward,  goods 
packed  on  horseback  or  drawn  in  a  single  cart,  and 
stopped  where  a  wheel  broke  or  a  horse  died;  while 
the  better-provisioned  pressed  on  toward  the  sunset 
in  their  heavy  canvas-covered  wagons  drawn  by  four 
or  six  horses.  *  With  many  pioneering  became  a 
habit.  They  could  not  breathe  with  the  smoke  of 
another's  house  in  sight  and  so  pressed  ever  west- 
ward, the  advance  couriers  of  a  civilization  which 
they  abhorred. 

Pioneer  Traits.     The  struggle  with  the  wilderness 
wrought  into  the  earlier  pioneer's  mind  a  set  of  dis- 
tinctive characteristics   which  have  often  been  de- 
1  Turner,  Rise  of  the  New  West,  80. 


8  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

scribed.  Lonely  and  out  of  touch  with  society,  com- 
pelled to  be  sufficient  unto  himself  for  such  rude  sub- 
sistence as  he  could  get,  he  lost  capacity  for  group 
action  and  became  an  extreme  individualist.  Away 
from  books  and  culture  and  with  no  one  to  enforce 
moral  demands  upon  him,  he  became  rude  and  wild; 
resentful,  when  society  again  caught  up  with  him,  of 
all  interference  with  his  actions.  He  took  the  law 
into  his  own  hands — or  rather  kept  it  there.  He  re- 
verted in  the  direction  of  the  Indian  with  wkom  he 
fought,  and  from  whom  he  learned.  The  perils 
of  the  wilderness  and  the  savage  forced  his  life  against 
a  background  of  fear.  The  frontier  got  on  his  nerves 
and  he  became  excitable,  reckless.  Whisky  became 
his  passion,  solace,  and  inspiration.  His  religious 
restraint  gradually  fell  from  him,  and  he  became  wildly 
emotional  in  religion.  Its  fires  flared  fitfully  under 
the  exhortation  of  the  itinerant  preacher  and  blazed 
out  in  the  great  revival  of  1800. 

The  Early  Revival.  This  frontier  revival  made 
a  temporary  social  impression  by  achieving  like-mind- 
edness  in  a  highly  individualistic  population.  It  got 
their  common  response  to  the  motive  of  fear.  The 
Indian  had  already  forced  the  pioneer  to  occasional 
cooperation.  The  terrors  of  hell  and  of  the  Indian 
became  the  chief  socializing  forces  of  the  frontier. 
Of  institutional  strength  the  early  revival  had  noth- 
ing. It  lacked  constructive  social  principles  and  in 
its  inevitable  reaction  seemed  destructive  to  the  more 
stable  types  of  religious  organization.  But  it  held 


MISSIONS    AS    EXPANSION   OF   CHURCH    g 

the  frontier  for  the  gospel  till  other  forces  and  better 
motives  could  appear. 

How  Religion  Spread.  Religion  in  the  earliest 
West  was  propagated  with  very  little  ecclesiastical 
guidance.  To  be  sure  Methodism  was  already  follow- 
ing its  high  instinct  as  essentially  a  missionary  sys- 
tem; and  the  Methodist  was  everywhere  along  the 
frontier.  But  so  was  the  Baptist,  who  multiplied 
without  the  slightest  church  machinery.  The  first 
praise  thus  belongs  to  men  of  religion — lay  preachers 
largely — who  were  of  the  Western  movement  itself, 
who  incarnated  its  motives,  took  its  risks,  lived  as  their 
neighbors  did,  preached  under  responsibility  to  the 
Lord  alone,  and  who  made  faith  in  its  rude  forms  in- 
digenous to  the  frontier.  The  missionary  found  and 
shepherded  these  men  but  the  Lord  created  them. 

A  Famous  Missionary  Survey.  How  frontier  re- 
ligious conditions  looked  to  the  eyes  of  the  older  sea- 
board states  appears  in  Mills  and  Schermerhorn's  fa- 
mous report  of  their  tour  of  missionary  exploration  in 
1813.  Sent  out  by  the  Massachusetts  and  Connecti- 
cut Missionary  Societies  they  crossed  the  Alleghanies 
in  Pennsylvania,  passed  through  what  is  now  West 
Virginia  and  the  Western  Reserve  of  Ohio,  traversed 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  traveled  with  Jackson's 
troops  to  Natchez,  thence  reached  New  Orleans  by 
flatboat.  They  found  Presbyterian  ministers  chiefly 
settled  in  the  towns,  supporting  themselves  by  school- 
teaching  or  vocations  other  than  the  ministry.  Such 
few  missionaries  as  the  General  Assembly  and  Cum- 


io  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

berland  Presbytery  had  were  sent  out  for  periods  of 
six  or  eight  weeks  only,  and  their  fruits  fell  to  the 
Methodists  and  Baptists.  Everywhere  they  reported 
most  appalling  religious  destitution.  As  we  would 
put  it  to-day,  Christianity  was  neither  numerically 
strong  nor  socially  effective.  What  they  chiefly  cata- 
loged were  the  vices  of  the  frontier — the  profanity 
and  Sabbath-breaking  of  Ohio;  horse-racing,  dueling, 
and  gambling  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  They 
found  no  Bibles  in  Louisiana,  and  to  their  Puritan 
minds  New  Orleans  was  a  city  of  unparalleled  wicked- 
ness. More  sin,  they  reported,  was  committed  there 
on  Sunday  than  in  all  the  rest  of  the  week.  They 
were  shrewd  enough,  also,  to  discern  beneath  some 
of  the  sectarian  vagaries  of  the  frontier  the  mental 
quirks  of  their  own  New  England.  Their  report  con- 
stitutes the  first  original,  comprehensive,  and  states- 
manlike home  missionary  survey  of  Western  conditions 
ever  attempted. 

The  First  Boards.  Behind  Mills  and  Schetmer- 
horn  stood  a  group  of  agencies  which  first  conceived 
home  missions  as  a  general,  organized,  and  permanent 
method  and  enterprise  of  national  evangelization.  Nat- 
urally they  represented  the  more  developed  and  com- 
mercial sections  of  the  nation,  specifically  New  Eng- 
land and  the  middle  states.  Denominationally  they 
were  Baptist,  Congregational,  Presbyterian,  and  Dutch 
Reformed.  Almost  simultaneously,  about  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century,  these  churches  organ- 
ized home  missionary  movements,  sometimes  under 


MISSIONS   AS   EXPANSION   OF   CHURCH  11 

state  designations,  but  substantially  with  like  intent, 
to  follow  the  frontier  with  the  institutions  of  religion. 
By  1826  the  strongest  of  these  agencies,  the  Con- 
necticut Missionary  Society,  had  sent  out  200  mis- 
sionaries and  organized  400  Presbyterian  and  Con- 
gregational churches.  The  characteristic  method  was 
that  of  somewhat  transient  service,  the  missionary 
laboring  briefly  in  a  given  community,  then  pressing 
on  to  preach  to  others.  Essentially  the  same  method 
was  more  systematically  employed  in  the  early  Metho- 
dist itinerancy.  Fundamentally  it  was  not  a  matter  of 
denominational  polity  but  simply  the  inevitable  method 
of  the  first  frontier. 

From  Forest  to  Prairie.  By  1830  the  "conquest 
of  the  great  forest"  which  covered  the  eastern  third 
of  the  continent  was  completed,  and  settlement  was 
just  venturing  upon  the  vast  prairies  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley.  So  long  as  pioneering  was  done  in  the  forest 
it  remained  substantially  the  same  as  it  had  been  in 
the  colonial  period.  Upon  the  prairies  it  took  new 
forms,  was  reen  forced  by  new  resources,  and  was 
followed  by  that  characteristic  phase  of  home  missions 
comprehended  within  the  experience  of  the  middle- 
aged  of  the  present  generation. 

The  Second  Phase  of  Home  Missions.  In  contrast 
with  the  preliminary  phase  of  home  missions  for  the 
pioneer,  this  second  and  characteristic  phase  had  for 
its  object  the  farmer,  and  for  its  method  the  com- 
munity church  with  its  settled  pastor.  It  dates  roughly 
from  1835  to  1890.  Of  course  there  were  farmers 


12  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

before  1835.  Though  the  earlier  settlement  of  the 
West  had  attracted  diverse  elements,  the  actual  home- 
seeker  had  always  been  in  the  majority.  But  the  con- 
quest of  the  entire  continent  had  not  yet  become  the 
objective  of  American  religion  which  it  was  from  De 
Tocqueville's  time  on,  and  the  farmer  was  not  yet 
the  conscious  agent  of  national  expansion.  This  came 
coincidentally  with  an  agricultural  revolution  the  like 
of  which  the  world  has  never  seen. 

From  Hand  to  Horse  Power.  "In  1833  practically 
all  the  work  of  the  farm  except  plowing  and  harrow- 
ing was  done  by  hand.  Though  there  had  been  minor 
improvements  in  hand  tools,  and  considerable  improve- 
ment in  live  stock  and  crops,  particularly  in  Europe, 
yet  it  is  safe  to  say  that,  so  far  as  the  general  character 
of  the  work  actually  performed  by  the  farmer  was 
concerned,  there  had  been  practically  no  change  for 
4,000  years.  Small  grain  was  still  sown  broadcast, 
and  reaped  either  with  a  cradle  or  the  still  more 
primitive  sickle.  .  .  .  Grain  was  still  thrashed  with 
a  flail  in  1833,  or  trodden  out  by  horses  and  oxen, 
as  it  had  been  in  ancient  Egypt  or  Babylonia.  Hay  was 
mown  with  a  scythe  and  raked  and  pitched  by  hand. 
Corn  was  planted  and  covered  by  hand  and  cultivated 
with  a  hoe.  By  1866  every  one  of  these  operations 
was  done  by  machinery  driven  by  horse-power,  except 
in  the  more  backward  sections  of  the  country."  *  It 
was  in  men  thus  suddenly  equipped  with  new  imple- 
ments of  conquest,  and  reen  forced  by  a  more  favorable 

1  Carver,  Principles  of  Rural  Economics,  84,  85. 


HORSE    POWER   AND   HAND    POWER 


MISSIONS    AS   EXPANSION    OF   CHURCH  13 

public  land  policy  and  by  the  railroad,  that  the  passion 
to  subdue  nature  flamed  out  into  the  vision  of  the 
"nation's  continental  destiny."  Shrewd,  bold,  and 
in  the  end  grasping,  the  farmer  hastened  across  the 
prairies  to  seize  all  the  natural  wealth  of  America 
that  could  be  seized  by  men  working  with  horse-power 
in  family  groups.  He  became  the  central  figure  of 
our  history  for  more  than  a  half -century. 

The  Farmer.  Agriculture  is  essentially  a  domestic 
industry.  Unlike  business  or  manufacturing,  it  is  car- 
ried on  at  home  and  its  work  shared  by  all  the  mem- 
bers of  a  family.  The  head  of  the  family  is  self-em- 
ployed. He  takes  orders  and  receives  wages  from  no 
man.  He  thinks  of  himself  and  makes  others  think  of 
him  as  independent.  His  relations  with  others  outside 
of  the  family  group  reflect  this  independence.  He 
owes  them  nothing  beyond  the  simple  duties  of  neigh- 
borliness.  Unlike  the  pioneer,  however,  he  has  neigh- 
bors and  lives  in  permanent  communities  within  driv- 
ing distance  of  the  country  store,  school,  and  church. 
But  social  development  stops  here.  Most  of  the  rela- 
tions between  farmer  families  are  competitive.  As 
landowners,  or  potential  landowners,  they  feel  their 
essential  equality  and  do  not  realize  their  poverty  in 
the  more  intricate  social  ties.  This  generalized  state- 
ment does  not  fit  all  farmers,  but  it  fairly  pictures  the 
type, 

The  Church  of  the  Farmer.  The  farmer's  religion 
reflects  his  character.  It  is  individualistic,  centering 
in  personal  salvation.  It  is  conservative,  seeking  to 


14  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

protect  the  family  group  from  disintegrating  vice  and 
to  conserve  the  virtues  of  thrift  and  purity.  It  warns 
therefore  against  gambling  as  the  enemy  of  thrift,  and 
intemperance  as  the  enemy  of  the  home.  The  farmer 
seated  his  church  with  family  pews,  but  saw  no  ob- 
jection to  dividing  the  community  between  many 
churches  if  the  interests  of  personal  salvation  were 
only  provided  for.  He  continued  but  toned  down  the 
pioneer's  revival,  and  added  the  peculiar  institutions 
of  the  family  group,  the  Sunday-school,  and  the 
prayer-meeting.  He  tended  to  have  a  settled  pastor, 
frequently  himself  a  farmer.  He  received  missionary 
aid  and  learned  traditionally  to  contribute  to  missions. 
And  his  women  organized  sewing  circles. 

Appropriate  Missionary  Methods.  As  the  farmer 
appeared  in  the  older  states,  the  existing  home  mission 
agencies  began  to  sense  his  peculiar  needs  and  vision 
as  contrasted  with  those  of  the  pioneer,  and  to  provide 
for  them.  Thus  in  1825  a  senior  in  Andover  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  Andover,  Massachusetts,  reading  an 
essay  before  the  student  Society  of  Inquiry  said: 
"We  want  a  system  that  shall  be  one — one  in  purpose 
and  one  in  action — a  system  aiming,  not  at  itinerant 
missionaries  alone,  but  at  planting,  in  every  little  com- 
munity that  is  rising  up,  men  of  learning  and  influ- 
ence, to  impress  their  character  upon  these  communi- 
ties— a  system,  in  short,  that  shall  gather  the  re- 
sources of  philanthropy,  patriotism,  and  Christian 
sympathy  throughout  our  country  into  one  vast  reser- 


MISSIONS    AS   EXPANSION    OF   CHURCH  15 

voir  from  which  a  stream  shall  flow  to  Georgia  and 
to  Louisiana,  to  Missouri  and  to  Maine."  l 

Organization  with  National  Vision.  This  was  symp- 
tomatic of  the  growing  appreciation  of  changed  con- 
ditions, which  issued  in  1826  in  the  organization  of 
the  American  Home  Missionary  Society,  with  the  pro- 
gram of  establishing  a  permanent  ministry  throughout 
the  West  under  "national  direction."  Its  organizers 
were  126  delegates  representing  thirteen  states  and 
denominationally  divided  between  the  Presbyterian, 
Congregational,  Reformed,  and  Associate  Reformed 
bodies.  Not  only  does  it  mark  the  beginning  of  mis- 
sions as  a  comprehensive  national  enterprise,  but  it 
undertook  the  task  with  surprising  disregard  for  sec- 
tarian considerations  in  the  broadest  spirit  of  Chris- 
tian statesmanship. 

Action  and  Reaction.  Its  more  intimate  motive  re- 
peatedly shines  through  the  routine  of  frontier  preach- 
ers' reports  as  spread  on  the  pages  of  the  missionary 
magazines  of  the  day :  Our  own  children  have  moved 
to  the  wicked  and  careless  West.  We  must  hasten  to 
provide  them  with  the  same  religious  environment 
that  they  had  back  home.  Socially  interpreted,  the 
oft-cataloged  sins  of  the  West  were  just  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  old  religious  habits.  With  this  clue  to 
duty  home  missions  as  originating  in  the  East  were 
rather  anxiously  conservative  than  consciously  alert 
to  lay  hold  of  the  new  moral  forces  which  were  wak- 
ing in  the  West,  or  to  direct  their  positive  destinies. 

*  Quoted  by  Joseph  B.  Dark,  Leavening  the  Nation,  60,  61. 


16  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Repeatedly  the  men  at  the  front  had  to  agonize  with 
their  Eastern  backers  to  get  them  to  understand  the 
socially  formative  significance  of  the  Western  churches. 
Home  missionary  vision  grew  as  some  of  the  West- 
erners themselves  came  to  occupy  the  directing  seats 
of  the  national  organization.  And  throughout  their 
characteristic  period  the  most  fruitful  and  innovating 
of  home  missionary  ideas  sprang  from  missionary 
ground.  By  this  give  and  take  process  home  missions 
became  balanced  and  nationalized  instead  of  being 
merely  the  religious  subjection  of  one  section  to  an- 
other. 

General  Tendencies  and  Differences.  The  limits 
of  this  chapter  do  not  permit  detailed  narration  of 
specific  denominational  movements  in  home  missions. 
Certain  general  ecclesiastical  and  sectional  differences 
however  require  pointing  out  as  essential  to  social 
interpretation. 

Church  Polity  and  Missionary  Organization.  First, 
strongly  organized  Churches  did  not  find  the  same 
need  of  separate  and  specific  home  missionary  or- 
ganization as  did  those  of  weaker  polities.  It  was 
very  easy  for  those  who  shared  some  form  of  episco- 
pal organization  to  discover  that  the  Church  itself 
was  a  missionary  agency.  This  principle  was  an- 
nounced in  almost  identical  language  by  the  Metho- 
dists *  in  1820  and  the  Episcopalians2  in  1835.  On 
the  other  hand  denominations  of  congregational  pol- 

1  Buckley,    Methodism,  650. 

*Burleson,  The  Conquest  of  the  Continent,  48. 


MISSIONS    AS    EXPANSION    OF   CHURCH   17 

ity  had  no  ecclesiastical  agencies  to  do  the  collective 
work  of  the  churches  and  were  therefore  compelled 
to  create  voluntary  societies.  Since  these  and  the 
kindred  boards  of  the  Presbyterian  bodies  bore  the 
name  of  "home  missionary"  and  created  separate  his- 
tories, it  is  much  easier  to  trace  and  judge  their  work 
than  that  of  denominations  in  which  home  missions 
form  a  more  integral  part  of  ecclesiastical  develop- 
ment. The  home  missionary  movement,  therefore,  was 
far  broader  than  the  home  missionary  name,  and 
justice  requires  that  this  be  remembered  in  estimating 
the  contributions  of  the  several  Churches  to  it. 

The  Denominations  and  the  People.  Second,  the 
denominational  results  of  home  missions  were  largely 
conditioned  by  the  character  of  the  population  emi- 
grating by  successive  waves  to  the  West.  The  pio- 
neers who  conquered  the  great  forest  before  1835 
were  predominantly  Southern.  Evicted  from  the  sea- 
board states  through  the  invasion  of  their  inland  coun- 
tries by  the  cotton  kingdom  with  its  slave-economy, 
"the  free  farmers  were  obliged  either  to  change  to 
the  plantation  economy  and  buy  slaves,  or  to  sell  their 
lands  and  migrate.  Large  numbers  of  them,  particu- 
larly in  the  Carolinas,  were  Quakers  or  Baptists,  whose 
religious  scruples  combined  with  their  agricultural 
habits  to  make  this  change  obnoxious.  This  upland 
country  was  a  hive  from  which  pioneers  earlier  passed 
into  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  Now  the  exodus  was 
increased  by  this  later  colonization.  The  Ohio  was 
crossed,  the  Missouri  ascended,  and  the  streams  that 


18  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

flowed  to  the  Gulf  were  followed  by  movers  away 
from  the  regions  that  were  undergoing  this  social  and 
economic  reconstruction."  1 

Settlers  from  the  South.  Even  in  Ohio  which  was 
first  settled  by  New  England  colonies  the  Yankee  was 
soon  distanced,  and  the  Southerner  crowded  close 
upon  the  emigrant  from  the  nearer  middle  states. 
"The  Illinois  legislature  for  1833  contained  fifty-eight 
from  the  South  (including  Kentucky  and  Tennessee), 
nineteen  from  the  middle  states,  and  only  four  from 
New  England.  Missouri's  population  was  chiefly  Ken- 
tuckians  and  Tennesseeans.  ...  It  was  the  poorer 
whites,  the  more  democratic,  non-slaveholding  element 
of  the  South,  which  furnished  the  great  bulk  of  the 
settlers  north  of  the  Ohio."  2  With  the  spread  of  this 
population  went  the  expansion  of  its  familiar  churches, 
those  which  had  attached  themselves  to  it  and  ex- 
pressed its  pioneer  moods  in  the  Southern  uplands. 
This  means  that  in  its  raw  bulk  the  human  material 
of  the  West  was  chiefly  Methodist  and  Baptist — not 
by  reason  of  the  peculiar  polity  of  either  denomina- 
tion, for  they  were  diametrically  opposed — but  by 
virtue  of  their  previous  relation  to  and  affinity  for 
the  population. 

Two  Dominating  Types.  Third,  the  social  organi- 
zation of  the  Western  population  was  largely  the  work 
of  two  highly  specialized  types,  the  Scotch-Irish  and 
the  Yankee.  The  Scotch-Irishman  was  the  natural 

*  Turner,  Rise  of  the  New  West,  54,  55. 
'Ibid.,  77- 


MISSIONS    AS    EXPANSION    OF   CHURCH  19 

leader  of  the  pioneer  days  and  the  peculiar  conqueror 
of  the  forest  for  social  institutions.  He  was  individu- 
alist of  individualists  in  his  Calvinism — yet  his  clan 
spirit  was  stronger  than  this  theology  and  he  migrated 
in  patriarchal  bands.  The  movement  of  such  a  band 
from  Tennessee  to  Illinois  in  1816  is  typical. 

A  Scotch-Irish  Church.  "They  had  enjoyed  in  some 
measure  the  ministry  of  the  famous  Dr.  Gideon  Black- 
burn of  Nashville.  Nearly  all  the  adults  of  it  were 
members  of  the  church;  and  every  morning  and  eve- 
ning on  the  way  they  had  family  worship,  Grandfather 
McCord,  the  patriarch  and  lay  preacher,  usually  con- 
ducting the  service.  After  reaching  the  borders  of 
Illinois  they  began  to  look  for  a  suitable  place  for 
settlement,  but  they  journeyed  on  and  on  until  they 
reached  the  heart  of  the  territory  and  were  crossing 
streams  which  made  their  way  westward  to  the  Mis- 
sissippi River.  Finally  one  morning  the  old  patriarch, 
looking  out  from  his  encampment  upon  a  broad  prairie, 
dotted  with  groves,  and  evidently  supplied  with  liv- 
ing streams,  said:  'This  shall  be  our  place  of  rest; 
and  Bethel  shall  be  its  name,'  and  Bethel  was  the 
name  of  the  place  for  many  years,  and  it  is  the  Bethel 
Church  to  this  day.  .  .  .  Their  house  of  worship  in 
1827  was  a  log  cabin,  in  size  twenty  by  twenty-five 
feet.  The  pulpit  was  a  box  made  of  split  clapboards. 
The  house  was  seated  very  well,  for  the  time.  A 
seat  made  of  split  puncheons  or  slabs  was  in  those  days 
considered  quite  comfortable.  Then,  in  the  winter, 
that  the  house  might  be  warm  enough  for  pioneers,  a 


20  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

plan  was  adopted  that  would  freeze  out  any  modern 
congregation,  but  which  in  those  days  answered  a 
very  good  purpose.  A  space  about  six  feet  in  diame- 
ter, right  in  the  middle  of  the  house,  was  left  without 
flooring,  securing  thus  an  earthen  hearth ;  a  bushel  or 
two  of  charcoal  was  laid  there  and  set  on  fire.  This 
made  the  house  quite  comfortable  on  cold  days."  l  At 
the  end  of  thirty  years  members  of  the  Bethel  Church 
swarmed  to  a  new  location  in  southern  Wisconsin — 
fifteen  being  transferred  in  a  single  year.  Here  in  a 
more  mixed  community  they  still  responded  to  the 
patriarchal  leadership  of  one  of  the  McCord  stock, 
and  expressed  marked  clan-cohesion  for  another  gen- 
eration. 

Fitness  for  Community  Leadership.  This  capac- 
ity for  bringing  forth  strong  and  compelling  com- 
munity leaders  and  for  establishing  social  and  spiritual 
permanence  around  them  was  the  Scotch-Irishman's 
immense  gift  to  the  West.  It  is  more  than  half  of 
the  secret  of  the  staunchness  and  dependability  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  to  which  he  traditionally  be- 
longed. And  as  Dr.  Warren  H.  Wilson  has  shown, 
it  made  him  the  typical  farmer  of  the  older  period. 

The  Yankee.  Still  more  potent  for  social  organiza- 
tion was  the  New  England  migration.  The  New  Eng- 
lander  came  late  upon  the  Western  scene.  After  its 
first  expansion  into  western  New  York  and  Ohio 
immediately  after  the  Revolution,  this  section  had 
been  busy  with  fisheries,  had  developed  extraordinary 

1  T.  O.  Douglass,  Autobiography,  9-14. 


MISSIONS    AS    EXPANSION    OF   CHURCH  21 

commercial  activity,  and  had  successfully  used  its 
surplus  population  in  establishing  infant  manufac- 
tures. But  after  the  destruction  of  the  carrying  trade 
by  the  war  of  1812  and  especially  after  the  completion 
of  the  Erie  Canal,  the  Yankee  swarmed  westward, 
bringing  culture  and  capital,  a  developed  institutional 
sense  and  a  machinery  of  social  life  which  no  other 
section  or  stock  possessed.  His  advantage  in  these 
respects  rested  back  upon  his  distinctive  system  of 
original  land  tenure. 

Land,  Town,  and  Church.  "In  the  early  days  in 
New  England  it  was  not  customary  to  make  grants 
of  land  directly  to  individual  settlers.  .  .  .  The  ear- 
lier towns  were  practically  settled  as  church  commu- 
nities ;  that  is  to  say,  the  formation  of  a  town  amounted 
practically  to  the  organization  of  a  church  congrega- 
tion and  then  settling  as  a  congregation  upon  a  tract 
of  land  and  calling  it  a  town.  When  a  town  was 
settled,  all  members  who  were  admitted  to  citizenship 
were  given  grants  of  land."  * 

Community  Life  and  Moral  Discipline.  Upon  this 
basis  of  landholding  New  England  developed  two 
dominant  traits  which  by  1830  had  become  its  dis- 
tinctive marks,  namely,  its  community  life  and  its 
moral  discipline.  Observers  from  other  sections  were 
impressed  by  its  "clustering  of  habitations  in  vil- 
lages," its  spires  of  white  churches  marking  to  the 
eye  each  separate  hamlet,  its  comfort  and  thrift.  They 
were  not  slow,  also,  to  sense  and  often  to  resent  that 

1  Carver,  Principles  of  Rural  Economics,  66. 


22  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

focusing  of  moral  sentiment  upon  individual  conduct 
which  made  every  man  his  brother's  keeper. 

The  Schoolmaster  of  the  Frontier.  In  his  most 
typical  migration  the  New  Englander  picked  up  his 
church  and  community  organization  bodily  and  set 
them  down  in  the  midst  of  the  wilderness  intact.  He 
expanded  his  idea  of  moral  discipline  till  he  became  his 
brother's  keeper  at  large  in  the  New  West,  its  school- 
master and  moral  reformer,  and  he  backed  and 
financed  this  tendency  through  the  national  missionary 
societies  of  which  he  was  the  chief  projector.  States 
whose  original  population  was  predominantly  South- 
ern took  the  social  stamp  of  New  England  and  succes- 
sively called  themselves  the  "Massachusetts  of  the 
West."  Laws,  institutions,  and  ideals  were  made  by 
this  aggressive  Yankee  minority.  To-day  the  typical 
church  of  New  England,  the  Congregational,  is  numer- 
ically and  sometimes  even  relatively  stronger  in  the 
Western  states,  which  were  socially  organized  by  New 
England,  than  in  New  England  itself. 

Sectionalism.  Fourth,  the  development  of  diverse 
agricultural  economies  by  the  North  and  the  South, 
which  were  at  the  roots  of  their  social  and  political 
sectionalism,  ultimately  directed  the  westward  move- 
ment of  home  missions  into  parallel  streams  which 
remained  separate  throughout  the  period  and  until 
increasingly  reunited  by  the  newer  social  aspects  of 
their  tasks. 

West  versus  East.  The  earliest  sectional  feeling 
was  that  of  West  versus  East,  as  if  Mason  and  Dixon's 


MISSIONS    AS    EXPANSION    OF    CHURCH  23 

line  were  stood  on  end.  The  whole  frontier,  from 
North  to  South,  was  essentially  a  unit  against  the 
older  seaboard  states  or  sections.  This  sectionalism 
was  acutely  evidenced  first  within  certain  states,  for 
example,  in  the  struggle  for  political  ascendency  be- 
tween the  tidewater  and  the  upland  sections  in  Vir- 
ginia, the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia.1  Each  of  these 
states  was  sharply  divided  by  nature  into  two  agricul- 
tural provinces:  the  coastal  plain,  with  its  plantation 
system,  based  on  slavery ;  and  the  forested  mountains, 
fit  only  for  frugal  pioneer  farming.  Between  them 
lay  the  piedmont,  a  debatable  ground. 

King  Cotton.  The  story  of  the  enormous  economic 
effects  of  the  cotton  industry,  after  the  invention  of 
Whitney's  gin,  is  familiar.  Already  in  1818  it  had 
made  the  exports  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia 
worth  half  as  much  as  those  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
nation.  Cotton  increased  its  average  sixfold  between 
1830  and  1860.  It  invaded  first  the  interior  valleys 
and  more  accessible  uplands,  driving  the  Southern 
small  farmer  into  the  mountains  and  beyond,  and  as 
we  have  seen,  increasingly  north  of  the  Ohio  river. 
Against  his  single-handed  opposition  and  even  against 
the  stubborn  clan-economy  of  the  Scotch-Irish  the 
plantation  system  was  victorious.  The  plantation  was 
a  little  world  in  itself — with  its  self-contained  econ- 
omy; its  grouping  of  slave  cabins  around  the  "great 
house";  its  industrial  discipline;  its  division  of  labor 
between  skilled  mechanics,  house  servants,  and  field 

1  Turner,  Rise  of  the  New  West,  52. 


24  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

hands ;  its  systematic  sanitation  and  frequently  system- 
atic religious  instruction.  In  its  westward  march 
across  the  broad  Southern  plains  it  exhibited  an  effec- 
tive method  of  occupying  and  organizing  new  country. 
It  provided  highly  specialized  ability  and  strong  natu- 
ral leaders.  It  gave  the  South  an  advantage  scarcely 
balanced  by  the  manufacturing  gains  and  internal  im- 
provements of  the  North. 

Cultivator  versus  Hoe.  The  transient  character  of 
this  advantage  appeared  with  the  agricultural  revolu- 
tion following  1833  which  gave  the  North  machinery 
to  release  human  labor.  The  slave  could  hot  use  these 
machines.  There  followed  the  war  of  the  cultivator 
against  the  hoe,  which  could  have  but  one  outcome. 
Add  to  this  the  facts  that  immigrants  who  now  rushed 
in  from  Europe  avoided  the  South  because  unwilling  to 
compete  with  slavery;  and  that  the  physiography  of 
the  South  limited  its  improved  lands  to  plots  and 
patches  while  the  prairie  states  could  be  farmed  solidly 
from  border  to  border,  and  one  has  a  clue  to  the  result 
of  the  Civil  War  profounder  than  the  marching  of 
armies.  Scarcely  staggered  by  the  losses  of  war  the 
Northern  farmer  pressed  westward,  improving  his 
implements,  followed  by  his  "granger"  railroads,  add- 
ing empires  to  his  acreage  and  billions  to  the  value 
of  his  product,  till  checked  and  forced  into  a  new 
economy  by  the  semi-arid  section  of  the  far  West. 

Denominational  Sectional  Divisions.  The  division 
of  the  stronger  and  more  national  denominations  into 
sectional  branches  on  the  question  of  slavery  is  better 


MISSIONS    AS    EXPANSION   OF   CHURCH  25 

viewed  in  its  larger  social  aspect.  It  was  really  a  re- 
flection of  the  divergent  types  of  agriculture  between 
the  sections.  The  church  reflected  the  farmer.  Dif- 
ferent types  of  farmers  required  different  churches. 
The  ground  of  separation  was  economic  as  well  as 
and  perhaps  more  than  political  or  moral.  Home  mis- 
sions became  necessarily  sectional,  representing  the 
geographical  expansion  of  religion  with  the  migration 
of  the  Northern  or  Southern  farm  types. 

Achievements  of  an  Era,  Thus  with  minor  diverg- 
encies of  method  but  with  essential  universality  the 
task  of  the  geographical  expansion  of  religion  has  been 
fulfilled.  As  the  central  missionary  interest  and  typi- 
cal missionary  method  of  the  Church  it  culminated 
by  about  1890.  It  was  but  a  rough  preliminary  con- 
quest compared  with  present  social  tasks,  but  it  was 
a  conquest.  There  had  been  diversities  of  gifts  but 
the  same  spirit,  and  it  was  a  masterful  one.  The  area 
to  be  covered  was  vast  in  unparalleled  degree.  For 
the  first  time  in  human  history  a  nation  with  an  im- 
perial domain  to  evangelize  was  to  try  the  experiment 
of  a  voluntarily  supported  Church,  which  would  go 
nowhere  except  as  the  devotion  and  colonizing  genius 
of  its  people  should  carry  it.  As  a  sequel,  religious 
opportunity,  as  measured  by  the  presence  of  the 
Church,  has  been  marvelously  equalized — the  newer 
states  fast  becoming  as  privileged  as  many  of  the 
older  ones.  The  five  great  sections  into  which  the 
census  now  divides  the  nation  vary  surprisingly  little 
in  the  ratio  of  church-members  to  population.  In 


26  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

brief,  the  voluntary  Church  in  American  life  is  every- 
where and  is  accepted  as  inevitable.  As  bound  by 
virtue  of  home  missions  to  go  wherever  national  ideals 
go,  it  constitutes  one  of  the  prime  factors  in  that 
"Americanization  of  the  world"  of  which  Mr.  Stead 
wrote. 

Heroes  in  Review — The  Indian  Missionary.  The 
pageant  of  our  national  movement  westward  has  often 
impressed  the  imagination.  Its  great  types  follow 
one  another — trapper,  frontiersman,  farmer,  manu- 
facturer and  workman.  Each  has  his  religious  double 
— first,  the  Indian  missionary.  Often  the  settler  found 
his  log  chapel  among  the  teepees  of  the  prairie.  The 
missionary  was  there  first.  The  other  day,  on  a  newly 
opened  reservation,  a  missionary  reported  the  first 
religious  service  for  the  handful  of  settlers  who  gath- 
ered from  beyond  the  horizon  to  a  sod  house  in  the 
midst  of  an  empty  prospect.  There  was  nothing  be- 
fore it  of  Christian  history — except  thirty  years  of 
lonely  labor  for  the  souls  of  the  Sioux.  On  a  neigh- 
boring reservation  a  man  was  ministering  whose 
grandfather  before  him  preached  the  gospel  to  the 
savages.  These  were  they  who  first — and  sometimes 
with  their  blood — consecrated  the  soil  of  this  land 
to  the  social  uses  of  God. 

The  Itinerant.  After  them  came  the  itinerant.  One 
day  the  music  of  our  grandfather's  ax  in  the  clearing 
was  broken  in  upon  by  the  clatter  of  hoofs  and  the 
hail  of  a  mellow  voice.  The  preacher  had  come,  wet 
with  swimming  the  streams,  bearing  news  of  two 


MISSIONS    AS    EXPANSION    OF   CHURCH  27 

worlds.  He  went  but  came  again,  till  he  had  gathered 
out  from  the  crude  elements  of  the  frontier  stern  and 
inflexible  groups  of  Christians,  who  set  up  vigorous 
rules  of  life  against  pioneer  profligacy,  intemperance, 
perchance  against  the  enslavement  of  human  beings. 
He  made  the  hearthstones  of  our  grandfathers  the 
altar  of  our  fathers'  faith. 

The  Pastor.  Our  uncles  and  our  fathers  were 
breaking  the  tough  prairie  sod  behind  steaming  horses, 
when  there  came  striding  across  the  gray  furrows  a 
stranger — manifestly  from  the  East,  who  announced 
that  church  would  be  held  next  Sunday.  He  had  a 
missionary's  commission  in  his  pocket  and  had  come 
to  stay — on  $300  from  the  board  and  what  the  people 
could  raise.  He  had  also  a  state  constitution  and  the 
plans  of  a  college  in  his  head.  After  that  there  was 
church  every  Sunday.  Soon  came  a  colony,  with  its 
land  patents,  its  surveyor,  doctor,  and  school-teachers, 
bearing  in  the  midst  of  its  "prairie  schooners" — like 
the  ark  in  the  midst  of  Israel — a  chest  with  books  for 
a  library  and  a  communion  service  from  the  old  home 
church. 

College  and  State.  In  due  time  the  state  and  the 
college  appeared.  In  the  one,  thousands  of  the  most 
virile  men  of  this  generation  were  born ;  in  the  other, 
trained.  The  stamp  of  home  missions  was  upon  both. 
A  generation  grew  to  manhood  without  seeing  a  legal- 
ized saloon.  The  doors  of  college  classrooms  bore 
the  names  of  New  England  churches  that  had  fur- 
nished the  desks  at  which  we  sat.  Our  library  was 


28  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

the  books  of  dead  preachers — our  laboratory  the  cast- 
off  apparatus  of  Eastern  institutions.  But  the  East 
sent  us  men  of  first  quality,  and  we  began  to  raise 
them  ourselves.  They  gave  us  high  and  austere  views 
of  life,  sound  attitudes  toward  scholarship,  and  fo- 
cused our  faith  and  duty  upon  the  "regions  beyond.' 
They  made  us  what  we  are — men  with  something  to 
hold  and  much  to  learn.  Our  day  shows  other,  per- 
haps better  things  to  do.  Yet  theirs  was  a  great  task 
well  done.  God  help  us  to  do  ours  as  well! 


FROM  SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO 
SOCIAL  AIM 


CHAPTER  II 
FROM  SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO  SOCIAL  AIM 

A  Preview.  The  first  chapter  sought  to  tell  the 
story  of  home  missions  before  1890  as  a  geo- 
graphical process,  interpreted  by  its  economic  back- 
ground and  with  its  social  expressions  incidentally 
noted.  It  will  be  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  con- 
sider the  chief  of  these  expressions  with  respect  to 
their  permanent  social  values,  to  show  why  all  of  them 
together  are  not  broad  enough  to  furnish  a  program 
of  collective  religious  service  for  to-day,  and  to  sum- 
marize the  characteristics  of  the  new  home  missions 
which  issue  from  our  wider  social  vision  and  deeper 
social  consciousness. 

Men  Larger  than  Their  Theories.  The  older  home 
missions  defined  their  aim  in  terms  of  personal  salva- 
tion, and  their  conservative  instinct  drove  them  to  or- 
ganize religious  institutions  on  old  patterns,  which 
safeguarded  the  home  and  reflected  a  simple  social 
economy.  But  manifestly  such  a  formulation  of  the 
case  is  inadequate  to  explain  such  a  man  as  Manasseh 
Cutler.  He  began  his  life  in  Massachusetts  and  ended 
it  there  as  a  Congregational  pastor.  In  his  seventy 
years  he  was  by  turn  pioneer,  storekeeper,  lawyer, 


32  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

physician,  army  chaplain,  and  author.  His  career 
made  him  state  legislator,  and  member  of  Congress; 
and  he  declined  Washington's  commission  as  Judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio.  As  agent  of  the  Ohio 
Company  and  organizer  of  the  Marietta  Colony,  he 
was  trader,  politician,  and  statesman  enough  to  hold 
up  the  great  land  bargain  which  opened  the  national 
domain  to  settlement  till  freedom,  education,  and  re- 
ligion had  been  written  in  the  organic  law.  However 
he  would  have  phrased  it,  such  a  mind  was  profoundly 
interested  in  the  colonization  of  the  West  as  a  social 
process,  and  there  were  social  potencies  in  his  life 
undreamed  in  his  theology.  Equally,  all  along  their 
successive  frontier  lines,  home  missions  wrought  so- 
cial effects,  which  officially  must  be  set  down  as  by- 
products. Many  of  the  men  who  wrought  them, 
however,  had  the  exact  equivalence  of  the  modern  so- 
cial spirit,  a  spirit  as  suited  to  their  day  and  task  as 
our  best  mood  to  ours. 

On  Virgin  Soil.  The  conditions  under  which  they 
wrought  conspired  to  give  home  missions  strategic 
social  value.  They  drank  of  the  vigor  of  the  new 
West.  Migration  to  a  frontier  necessarily  means 
rapid  social  change.  It  selects  the  active  and  eager, 
and  puts  them  into  a  society  largely  free  from  social 
stratification;  it  releases  and  quickens  individual  en- 
ergy, awakens  ambition,  and  creates  "go."  Home  Mis- 
sions, therefore,  may  have  found  transportation  hard, 
money  scarce,  and  minds  preoccupied ;  but,  when  once 
arrested  by  the  challenge  of  the  spiritual  life,  there 


REV.   PETER  CARTWRIGHT 

Called  a  backwoods  preacher 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     33 

were  optimisms,  courage,  and  vision  which  gave  re- 
ligion tremendous  advantage. 

Call  for  Leadership.  The  West  was  a  state  of  so- 
ciety profoundly  dependent  upon  leadership.  The  dis- 
solution of  older  social  tradition  by  migration,  the 
gathering  of  many  sorts  of  men  on  the  frontier,  the 
resulting  conflict  of  ideas  and  sentiments  made  some 
sort  of  new  leadership  inevitable.  Peter  Cartwright 
flailing  the  rowdies  of  the  Kentucky  camp-meeting 
was  a  symbol  of  men  who  must  arise  for  all  the  higher 
constructive  tasks  of  civilization.  It  is  something  to 
find  sheep  without  a  shepherd,  for  then  perhaps  they 
will  follow  you.  Under  these  conditions  home  mis- 
sions became  one  of  the  chief  organizing  factors  of 
American  society. 

We  have  now  to  enumerate  some  of  their  methods, 
and  to  appraise  their  chief  results. 

I.  The  Transplanted  Community.  The  previous 
chapter  has  already  indicated  the  transcendent  im- 
portance of  that  method  of  Christian  colonization 
which  brought  the  Church  community  from  the  older 
regions  intact.  Thus  the  Pilgrims  had  brought  their 
Church  from  Holland  and  set  it  down  on  these  shores. 
Thus  in  successive  journey  ings  the  Church  moved 
west,  bringing  with  it  full  social  organization  of  the 
community  type,  efficient  leadership,  and,  frequently, 
economic  capital.  This  method  made  the  transition 
from  old  to  new  with  the  least  social  loss,  and  had 
great  advantage  in  social  power  over  more  frag- 
mentary migrations.  It  escaped,  in  large  part,  the 


34  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

period  of  frontier  disintegration,  and  was  able  to 
organize  and  impress  great  masses  of  plastic  popula- 
tion of  other  types.  Thus  the  famous  Dorchester 
Church  migrated  from  Massachusetts,  seventy-five 
years  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  to  South  Caro- 
lina; and  thence  fifty  years  later  to  Georgia,  continu- 
ing its  name  and  organization,  and  leaving  its  stamp 
upon  three  states. 

Western  Reserve  Example.  As  typical  of  this 
process,  Dr.  Josiah  Strong  describes  a  colony  on  the 
Western  Reserve:  "Founded  by  a  far-seeing  and  de- 
voted home  missionary.  He  had  become  convinced  that 
he  could  do  more  to  establish  Christian  institutions  on 
the  Reserve  'by  one  conspicuous  example  of  a  well- 
organized  and  well-Christianized  township,  with  all 
the  best  arrangements  and  appliances  of  New  England 
civilization,  than  by  many  years  of  desultory  effort  in 
the  way  of  missionary  labor.'  The  settlers  were  care- 
fully selected.  None  but  professing  Christians  were 
to  become  landholders.  As  soon  as  a  few  families 
had  moved  into  the  township,  public  worship  was  com- 
menced, and  has  ever  since  been  maintained  without 
interruption.  A  church  was  organized  under  the  roof 
of  the  first  log  cabin.  At  the  center  of  the  township, 
where  eight  roads  meet,  was  located  the  church  build- 
ing fitly  representing  the  central  place  occupied  by  the 
service  of  God  in  the  life  of  the  colony.  Soon  fol- 
lowed the  schoolhouse  and  the  public  library,  and 
there,  in  the  midst  of  the  unconquered  forest,  only 
eight  years  after  the  first  white  settlement,  the  peo- 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     35 

pie,  mindful  of  higher  education,  and  true  to  their 
New  England  antecedents,  planted  an  academy."  l 

Christian  Colonization.  So  perfect  a  case  of 
Christian  colonization  was  necessarily  somewhat  rare, 
but  the  general  method  was  so  common  that  a  widely 
used  and  recent  school  text-book  on  civics  2  begins  its 
interpretation  of  social  organization  in  America  with  a 
study  of  a  Western  church  community.  The  stimula- 
tion of  Western  migration  by  missionary  promoters, 
the  guidance  of  its  group  movements,  and  their  prompt 
organization  into  church  communities  went  on  ex- 
tensively especially  under  New  England  auspices. 
Strangely  enough  it  is  Mormonism  which  furnishes  the 
most  complete  example  of  religious  colonization.  While 
going  sadly  wrong  in  doctrine,  this  movement  pre- 
eminently manifested  social  capacity  and  the  ability 
to  assimilate  alien  elements.  Some  of  the  more  pre- 
tentious efforts  at  orthodox  Christian  colonization 
failed  because  of  speculative  entanglements;  others 
like  Jason  Lee's  splendid  Oregon  company,  gathered 
in  the  interest  of  Indian  missions,  builded  better  than 
they  knew,  and  became  centers  of  new  common- 
wealths.3 

Other  Applications.  Such  a  method  does  not  differ 
at  its  roots  from  the  social  settlement,  which  to-day 
colonizes  the  "city  wilderness" ;  and  it  would  make  a 
perfectly  sound  basis  for  the  modern  development 

1  Our  Country,  196. 

*  Dunn,  The  Community  and  the  Citizen. 

'  Schafer,  History  of  the  Pacific  Northwest,  169. 


36  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

of  a  rural  community,  say  in  connection  with  an  irri- 
gation project.  It  is  not  a  method  to  be  abandoned, 
but  one  to  which  we  shall  return. 

2.  The  Missionary  Pastor.  Recipient  of  a  meager 
stipend  and  of  cast-off  clothing,  traditionally  rearing 
his  family  on  pumpkins  and  milk,  socially  considered, 
the  home  missionary  was  a  strategically  placed,  supe- 
rior man.  The  plastic  West  yielded  itself  to  the  in- 
itiating energy  of  strong  personality,  which  sociology 
recognizes  as  among  the  primary  social  forces  every- 
where. Of  course  not  every  missionary  could  be  a 
Gideon  Blackburn,  with  states  for  his  parish,  but 
there  were  mighty  and  constructive  men  among  them 
almost  without  number.  Simple  goodness  too  has  its 
own  efficiency.  The  letters  of  one  of  the  indomitable 
laymen  who  molded  states  refer  most  affectingly  to 
his  mild  missionary  pastor  as  "John  the  Beloved." 
Not  alone  the  big-fisted  frontier  preacher,  but  such 
leader  incarnations  of  spiritual  grace  have  power  to 
move  the  mystic  who  lurked  always  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Scotch-Irishman,  or  to  focus  the  deeper  forces 
of  the  Yankee  community.  To  catalog  the  home  mis- 
sionary in  all  his  varieties  is  to  catalog  an  army.  The 
itinerant's  physical  endurance  and  spiritual  travail 
but  one  passage  can  describe.  "In  journeyings  often, 
in  perils  of  rivers,  in  perils  of  robbers,  in  perils  from 
my  countrymen,  in  perils  from  the  Gentiles,  in  perils 
in  the  city,  in  perils  in  the  wilderness,  in  perils  in 
the  sea,  in  perils  among  false  brethren;  in  labor 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     37 

and  travail,  in  watchings  often,  in  hunger  and  thirst, 
in  fastings  often,  in  cold  and  nakedness."  l 
t  A  Commonwealth  Builder.  What  then  shall  be  said 
of  the  reserve  resources  and  staying  powers  of  a  man 
who  died  in  1910  after  a  continuous  pastorate  of 
sixty-five  years  west  of  the  Mississippi  River;  a 
man  who  started  with  the  beginnings  of  things 
and  lived  to  see  his  portrait  hung  in  the  capitol 
building  of  his  state  as  one  of  the  chief  makers  of 
the  commonwealth;  and  what  of  thousands  of  this 
type,  who  wrought  out  community  results,  under  the 
ideal  of  permanence,  results  which  modern  social  con- 
structiveness  cannot  surpass  ?  And,  whatever  his  type, 
the  central  fact  in  home  missions  was  the  missionary. 

3.  Together.     The  most  constructive  application 
of  the  ideal  of  permanence  was  in  the  group-apostolate 
or  Band.     Such  home  missionary  groups  went  out 
from    Eastern   theological   seminaries    to    successive 
frontiers — Illinois,  Iowa,  the  Dakotas,  Washington — 
all  in  the  spirit  of  the  famous  eleven  of  the  Iowa 
Band,  "Each  to  found  a  church  and  all  together  a 
college."     Such  bringing  of  highly  trained  men  to 
the  task  of  institution  building,  in  the  plastic  period 
of  the  West,  constituted  a  social  technique  of  the  high- 
est order.    No  method  could  be  more  effective  if  ap- 
plied now  to  complex  social  situations. 

4.  The  Sunday  School.       Sects     still     persist     in 
America  to  whom  the  Sunday-school  is  an  unorthodox 
social  innovation,  along  with  missions  and  the  prayer- 

'2  Cor.  xi.  26,  27. 


38  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

meeting.  They  reflect  the  ideal  of  the  most  primitive 
frontier,  before  safety  and  neighborliness  permitted 
the  intensive  religious  process  of  the  home-making 
farm  group.  The  Sunday-school  preceded  the  organ- 
ized church  in  frequent  practise  and,  perhaps  even 
more  than  the  regular  pastorate,  is  the  typical  religious 
institution  of  its  time.  It  supplemented  the  home;  it 
expressed  community  organization  on  the  elementary 
level ;  it  could  be  operated  under  humble  circumstances 
by  the  average  layman.  It  was  thus  peculiarly  adapted 
to  pioneer  conditions.  From  1824  union  agencies,  and 
later  denominational  ones,  sent  out  organizers  of  Sun- 
day-schools. Of  course  Sunday-school  missions  redi- 
rected by  pedagogy  continue  as  one  of  the  great  de- 
partments of  present-day  home  missionary  work.  The 
most  enlightened  program  for  rehabilitating  the  coun- 
try community  looks  to  the  modernized  Sunday-school 
as  a  central  factor.  Child  welfare  is  a  most  crucial 
point  of  modern  social  emphasis.  With  the  broaden- 
ing of  their  field  to  include  the  whole  scope  of  religious 
education  (including  missionary  education)  and  with 
the  development  of  a  higher  type  of  experts,  Sunday- 
school  missions  discover  a  new  task  fundamentally 
involved  in  the  intellectual  readjustment  and  social 
leadership  of  the  Church.  In  a  world  which  is  becom- 
ing increasingly  a  child's  world  their  essential  service 
will  wax  rather  than  wane. 

5.  Literature.  Narrowing  the  survey,  as  our  defi- 
nition of  home  missions  requires,  to  that  literary  out- 
put which  bore  the  imprint  of  denominational  pub- 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     39 

lishing  houses,  or  was  directly  promulgated  for  pur- 
poses of  missionary  propaganda,  not  much  is  left  to 
impress  the  critic  or  historian  of  American  letters. 
Yet  whoever  has  seen  Sunday-school  literature  in  the 
hands  of  a  rural  community  has  seen  the  seeds  and 
may  have  watched  the  development  of  vast  forces. 
The  story  of  Lincoln's  boyhood  or  the  memory  of 
any  one's  Western  grandfather  will  illustrate  the 
frontier's  poverty  in  books.  Mills  and  Schermerhorn 
kept  exclaiming,  "No  Bible  south  of  the  Ohio  River," 
and  they  might  have  added,  "Nor  any  other  book!" 
It  was  not  strange  therefore  that  they  were  making  a 
second  trip  within  two  years  with  a  supply  of  Bibles, 
and  that  the  most  outstanding  result  of  their  revela- 
tion of  frontier  conditions  was  the  consolidation  in 
1816  of  earlier  agencies  into  the  American  Bible  So- 
ciety. In  1825  followed  the  American  Tract  Society, 
to  produce  and  circulate  a  more  general  Christian 
literature.  These  two  now  venerable  union  agencies 
of  home  missions,  supplemented  by  denominational 
presses  and  societies,  have  put  staggering  millions  of 
printed  pages  into  national  moral  development  and 
covered  the  continent  with  good  books. 

Why  Books?  Some  of  our  present  moods  incline 
us  to  see  in  all  this  a  pathetic  overemphasis  on  literary 
methods,  characteristic  of  Yankee  reforms  in  general. 
But  the  actual  situation  gave  it  its  deep  wisdom.  Thus 
a  Wisconsin  missionary  in  1836  pushed  across  the 
Mississippi,  preaching  the  first  sermon  and  organizing 
a  Sunday-school  in  an  infant  settlement  of  the  Black 


40  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Hawk  strip.  "I  proposed,"  he  reports,1  "if  they  would 
raise  $5.00  I  would  furnish  $10.00  worth  of  books; 
and  they  immediately  collected  $11.50  and  paid  it  over, 
and  I  have  forwarded  the  library."  Now  the  sociol- 
ogizing  mind  might  raise  the  question  whether  the 
Black  Hawk  strip  did  not  first  need  some  more  imme- 
diate element  of  civilization  than  books.  But  the  mis- 
sionary goes  on  to  explain,  "They  urged  me  to  come 
again.  But  there  are  six  or  eight  places  on  this  side 
[of  the  Mississippi],  equally  important,  that  I  have 
not  visited  for  many  months."  In  brief,  books  econo- 
mized men  and  in  the  hands  of  the  frontier  Sunday- 
school  teacher  were  powerful  leaven.  Behind  this 
consideration  there  lies  also  the  deepest  social  implica- 
tion of  Protestantism,  namely,  that  all  men  must  be 
educated  to  be  able  to  read  the  Bible  under  standingly. 
Of  this  conviction,  however  far  it  takes  one,  the  book 
was  the  symbol.  Almost  everywhere  the  Sunday- 
school  library  was  the  first  publicly  accessible  collec- 
tion of  books.  Traditional  its  literature  may  have  been 
or  prosy,  but  home  missions  were  the  first  Carnegie  of 
the  nation. 

6.  The  Church  School.  Precisely  this  background 
is  necessary  for  a  genuine  evaluation  of  the  church 
school.  Recent  historians  of  American  education  are 
inclined  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  in  its  original  en- 
vironment the  church  school  was  professional — 
founded  "to  raise  up  a  learned  and  goodly  ministry" ; 
and  aristocratic — always  dominated  by  the  ideal  of 

1  Home  Missionary,  September,   1836. 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM    41 

"ye  university";  also  that  denominational  ends  could 
not  include  a  complete  democratic  system  or  a  demo- 
cratic adjustment  of  education  for  the  entire  people. 
It  is  more  to  the  point,  however,  to  contemplate  the 
actual  function  of  the  church  school  as  tempered  by 
the  spirit  of  the  West  to  its  own  uses.  Thus  the  most 
characteristic  church  school,  the  academy,  was  the  ex- 
press image  of  Western  democracy  in  its  best  ideals. 

The  Academy.  In  contrast  with  the  class-cleavage 
idea  reflected  in  the  college  and  grammar-school  sys- 
tem, the  academy  directly  reflects  the  rise  of  the  char- 
acteristic American  middle  class.  It  is  "one  of  their 
glories  that  they  were  in  the  earliest  days  so  bound  up 
with  the  higher  interests  of  the  common  people."  * 
Thus  the  constitutions  of  the  two  historic  Phillips 
Academies  make  no  mention  of  college  preparation  as 
the  object  of  their  founding.  The  academies  spread 
westward  as  exponents  of  the  kind  of  education  which 
was  fittingly  open  to  all  aspiring  youth  under  condi- 
tions of  frontier  equality.  Most  of  the  so-called  West- 
ern colleges  were  merely  academies  at  first  and  shared 
their  ideals.  They  furnished  the  frontier  with  its 
teachers ;  they  originated  general  education  for  women ; 
they  mediated  between  the  culture  of  the  civilized 
world  and  the  inchoate  West;  they  made  our  fathers 
and  mothers  what  they  were. 

The  College,  The  fundamental  educational  needs 
of  the  frontier  being  provided  in  the  academies,  home 
missions  were  profoundly  right  in  their  instinct  to 

1  Brown,  Making  of  our  Middle  Schools,  229. 


42  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

raise  up  leaders  for  the  new  civilization  through  the 
colleges.  When  the  Iowa  Band  resolved,  "each  to 
found  a  church  and  all  together  a  college,"  it  was  be- 
cause they  believed  in  themselves,  in  the  contribution 
to  society  to  be  made  by  such  fully  trained  men  as 
they.  The  outcome  of  their  faith,  and  of  faith  like 
theirs  was  that  the  destinies  of  American  higher  educa- 
tion up  to  the  Civil  War  were  virtually  in  the  hands  of 
the  church  school  and  that  institutions  of  such  ances- 
try and  type,  still  educate  two  thirds  as  many  students 
as  are  found  in  the  thronging  public  universities.  As 
everybody  knows  the  stronger  of  the  early  church 
schools  have  quite  outgrown  their  ecclesiastical  control 
and  almost  entirely  their  denominational  affiliations; 
have  become  universities,  and  are  the  most  highly 
favored  recipients  of  benefactions  from  men  of  great 
wealth.  Harvard  and  Yale  have  long  ceased  to  be 
thought  of  as  belonging  to  the  churches  which  founded 
them.  Church  schools  of  middle  size  are  in  great 
danger  of  becoming  prosperous  class  institutions  for 
the  children  of  the  well-to-do;  centers  of  sound  schol- 
arship indeed  and  of  a  certain  culture,  but  standing  a 
little  apart  from  the  main  current  of  democratic  as- 
piration and  service;  or  else  of  being  crowded  to  the 
wall  by  the  none-too-gentle  pressure  of  trust  methods 
in  education.  The  former  danger  is  the  more  serious 
and  subtle.  From  no  standpoint  of  social  efficiency 
can  defense  be  made  for  the  effort  to  maintain  thirty 
or  forty  colleges,  such  as  denominational  zeal  has 
founded  in  some  of  the  states  of  the  Middle  West, 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     43 

and  nobody  to-day  tries  to  defend  it.  On  the  other 
hand  nothing  should  dim  the  fact  that  most  of  the 
large  colleges  have  been  small  colleges  through  most 
of  their  history  and  that  consequently  the  small  college 
has  done  more,  as  it  perhaps  can  still  do,  for  demo- 
cratic opportunity  in  higher  education  than  any  other 

type.1 

Newer  Types  and  Needs.  Public  education  is  at 
the  bottom  a  matter  of  taxable  property.  Where  re- 
sources for  its  adequate  support  do  not  exist,  as  in 
many  thinly  settled  and  backward  areas  of  the  na- 
tion, the  church  school,  adapting  the  academy  ideal 
to  modern  educational  demands  and  supported  by  mis- 
sionary money,  will  have  a  long  future  of  indispen- 
sable service.  New  forms  of  the  church  school  sug- 
gested by  the  International  College  at  Springfield, 
Massachusetts,  will  reflect  the  needs  of  new  popula- 
tion for  assimilation  to  our  civilization.  In  the  de- 
velopment of  the  backward  races  its  place  is  still  cen- 
tral. An  adjustment  between  Christian  education  and 
the  state  university  is  bound  to  be  found.  All  these 
mean  the  continuance  of  an  old  though  modified  home 
missionary  method. 

7.  Constructive  Legislation  and  Moral  Reform. 
The  home  missionary  was  so  much  a  social  former 
that  it  was  not  his  first  task  to  be  a  social  reformer. 
When  laws  and  institutions  were  in  making  he  was 
on  the  ground  and  had  possession  of  the  machinery. 

1  Thwing,  Education  in  the  United  States  Since  the  Civil  War, 


'44  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

He  sat  in  constitutional  conventions  and  wrote  planks 
into  political  platforms.  His  deepest  interest  was  in 
safeguarding  the  home  and  its  thrift.  Therefore  he 
was  the  aggressive  agent  of  temperance  and  the  in- 
veterate foe  of  gambling,  particularly  of  the  legalized 
lottery.  In  the  sectional  conflict,  the  home  missionary 
lived  along  the  firing  line  of  national  righteousness  as 
he  understood  it.  The  time  came  when  "every  Metho- 
dist preacher  was  regarded  as  an  abolition  agent."  l 
During  the  struggle  for  Kansas,  one  wrote :  "Stirring 
times  at  Tabor  now.  Pastor  John  Todd  has  a  brass 
cannon  in  his  haymow,  and  another  on  wheels  in  his 
wagon  shed.  He  also  has  boxes  of  old  clothing, 
boxes  of  ammunition,  boxes  of  sabers,  and  twenty 
boxes  of  Sharp's  rifles  stowed  away  in  the  cellar."  2 
With  such  a  tradition  behind  them  it  is  not  surprising 
that  some  of  the  earliest  expressions  of  modern  so- 
cial militancy  were  in  home  missionary  institutions 
of  the  central  West.  To  men  far  from  cities  and 
the  noise  of  industrial  battle,  sitting  among  the  sheep- 
cotes  of  strictly  rural  states,  came  echoes  of  social 
strife  which  kindled  old  reforming  fires.  This  tradi- 
tion of  devotion  to  reform  remains  part  of  the  perma- 
nent equipment  of  home  missions  for  their  task. 

8.  Special  Social  Adaptations  to  the  Backward 
Races.  Writing  as  late  as  1900  on  religious  move- 
ments for  social  betterment,  Dr.  Josiah  Strong  nar- 
rated chiefly  the  institutional  activities  of  exceptional 

1  Helm,  The  Upward  Path,  232. 
*  Douglass,  Pilgrims  of  Iowa,  130. 


SOCIAL   BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     45 

parishes  and  could  find  little  to  include  under  "organ- 
ized denominational  effort  for  social  betterment"  but 
missions  to  Negroes  and  Indians.1  In  these  realms 
home  missions  made  some  fundamental  social  experi- 
ments, the  results  of  which  hold  good  for  all  time. 
These  included  such  conspicuous  failures  as  the  at- 
tempt to  handle  the  national  Indian  policy  by  assign- 
ing the  reservations  to  the  charge  of  denominational 
boards,2  and  such  highly  original  and  fruitful  suc- 
cesses as  the  application  of  vocational  training  to  racial 
uplift,  as  worked  out  at  Hampton  and  elsewhere.  But 
both  failures  and  successes  pioneered  the  way  to  the 
newer  social  insights  and  service,  and  their  agencies 
abide  among  the  most  useful  of  the  present  day.  Some- 
thing of  their  story  will  be  suggested  in  other  con- 
nections. 

9.  Influence  on  Ecclesiastical  Organization.  The 
West  made  the  nation  what  it  is.  Its  Eastern  con- 
sciousness has  always  been  hampered  by  the  "persist- 
ent presence  of  the  frontier,"  and  its  most  vital 
process  has  always  been  the  give  and  take  of  the 
sections.  Similarly  home  missions  have  made  the 
American  Church  what  it  is.  Whatever  its  creed  or 
form  of  polity,  its  main  business  in  America  hitherto 
has  been  geographical  expansion  and  its  organization 
has  reflected  this  necessity.  Whether  by  board  or  by 
bishop,  its  extension  agencies  have  been  ecclesiastically 

1  Strong,  Religious  Movements  for  Social  Betterment,  go. 
'McKenzie,  The  Indian  in  Relation  to  the  White  Population, 
14  ff. 


46  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

formative.  Thus  they  have  been  the  chief  tie  between 
the  local  churches  of  congregationally  organized  com- 
munions, which  denied  all  centralizing  authority.  At 
the  other  extreme  they  brought  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church  to  adopt  the  revolutionary  device  of 
the  missionary  bishop  sent  out  by  the  Church  at 
large.1  Indeed  the  missionary  task  is  likely  to  become 
the  main  organizing  principle  of  American  Christian- 
ity. The  rapid  and  revolutionary  changes  in  polity 
now  going  on  in  several  of  the  great  denominations 
are  all  in  the  confessed  interest  of  working  efficiency 
in  missions  as  socially  broadened  and  redirected. 

10.  Initiative.  Our  national  humor  lets  us  appre- 
ciate the  observation  that  any  chance  meeting  of  three 
Americans  spontaneously  organizes  with  chairman, 
secretary,  and  a  man  to  second  motions.  This  tend- 
ency leads  to  sinful  overorganization.  On  the  other 
hand  it  is  a  testimony  to  social  resourcefulness  born 
of  pioneer  conditions.  The  frontier  was  the  mother 
of  initiative.  That  a  thing  had  never  been  done  be- 
fore was  no  reason  for  not  trying  it  now.  It  made 
the  reforming  spirit  adventurous  and  adaptive.  Home 
missions  in  this  atmosphere  got  zest  for  experiment. 
This  is  a  profound  variation  from  the  ordinary  con- 
servatism of  religious  institutions.  It  remains  an  es- 
sential of  the  spiritual  equipment  now  that  the  Ameri- 
can Church  stands  on  the  frontier  of  social  experience. 
Social  experiment  under  the  principle  of  voluntary 
organization  will  throng  its  new  regions  with  incipient 

1  Burleson,  The  Conquest  of  the  Continent,  60. 


SOCIAL   BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     47 

sects,  with  varied  cure-alls.  But  newly  acute  prin- 
ciples of  selection  are  at  work,  which,  with  the 
growing  scientific  temper,  may  be  expected  to  weed 
out  the  unfruitful  more  quickly  than  in  former  years ; 
and  out  of  this  multiplicity  of  experiment  the  clear 
portents  of  a  better  day  will  soon  break.  Such  ad- 
venturous alertness,  such  resourceful  initiative  are 
the  priceless  heritage  of  the  home  missionary  spirit. 

Is  the  Past  Adequate?  Thinking  back  now  over 
the  whole  social  heritage  of  home  missionary  history, 
it  is  an  insensate  soul  which  does  not  thrill  with  rev- 
erent pride  and  satisfaction.  And  if  such  a  soul 
chances  to  inhabit  a  body  and  use  a  brain  which 
reached  maturity  before  1890,  it  is  at  least  an  even 
chance  whether  it  may  not  say  within  itself,  Is  not  such 
a  heritage  sufficient?  Isn't  the  mighty  past  adequate 
to  give  a  missionary  program  to  the  present?  Are 
there  any  novelties  which  are  more  than  novel,  which 
constitute  essential  additions  to  all  resources  and 
methods?  To  meet  this  mood  it  is  only  fair  to  con- 
sider some  of  the  inadequacies  of  the  older  home  mis- 
sions to  their  own  day  and  increasingly  to  ours. 

The  Shortcomings  of  Our  Fathers.  Thus  in  1844 
a  home  missionary  reported :  "The  cause  of  the  delay 
of  this  report  is  the  existence  of  the  smallpox,  in  an 
epidemic  form,  in  our  village.  We  have  been,  and 
are  being,  most  severely  and  dreadfully  scourged  with 
it.  It  commenced  in  this  village  on  October  28  in  a 
very  mild  form,  and  continued  such  for  a  considerable 
length  of  time,  so  that  four  weeks  elapsed  before  any 


48  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

of  our  physicians  discovered  its  true  character,  so  as 
to  venture  to  call  it  by  its  true  name;  and  another 
week  passed  away  before  they  could  all  be  persuaded 
of  it.  From  its  commencement  no  death  occurred  by  it 
until  December  6,  since  which  it  has  been  very  fatal. 
As  a  consequence,  all  business  is  at  a  standstill; 
the  schools  are  suspended;  and  the  places  of  worship 
nearly  deserted.  Many  are  sick,  and  they  must  have 
attendants.  The  whole  village  is  affected  with  the 
disease.  .  .  .  Fifteen,  who  a  few  days  since  were 
among  us  in  all  the  buoyancy  of  spirits  and  of  life, 
now  lie  beneath  the  turf.  What  the  end  will  be,  God 
only  knows.  The  disease  stole  in  among  us  in  so 
mild  a  shape  that  almost  the  whole  community  were 
fully  exposed  to  its  contagion  before  they  were  aware 
of  the  danger.  And  when  the  alarm  came  it  was 
too  late  to  flee,  or  to  take  measures  in  self-defense. 
And  when  resort  was  made  to  vaccination,  it  was 
found  that  we  had  imposed  upon  us  a  vitiated,  if  not 
spurious,  vaccine  virus,  which  proved  to  be  no  pro- 
tection, yea,  much  worse  than  none.  God  meant  to 
scourge  us;  he  did  not  intend  that  we  should  be  able 
to  escape  or  elude  it.  And  we  feel  but  the  just  expres- 
sion of  his  wrath.  May  Heaven  dispose  this  people 
to  profit  by  this  severe  judgment."  * 

Then  and  Now.  One  hardly  knows  which  to  ad- 
mire least,  the  sanitary  stupidity  which  failed  to  dis- 
continue church  services  during  the  epidemic  or  the 
theological  stupidity  which  ascribed  an  uncontrolled 

1  Quoted  by  T.  O.  Douglass,  Autobiography,  23,  24. 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     49 

epidemic  to  God.  Manifestly  the  fifteen  who  died 
were  members  of  the  community  and  church  in  a 
sense  not  comprehended  by  the  current  home  missions. 
Increase  this  membership  to  hundreds  of  thousands 
using  a  common  water  supply  or  sewerage  system  in 
a  great  modern  city  and  religion  clearly  must  at  once 
take  more  inclusive  and  more  intricate  forms  to  match 
the  fact  or  to  control  its  malign  possibilities. 

Out-of-Datc  Morals.  In  1913  a  Southern  state  en- 
acted legislation  intended  to  eradicate  the  cattle  tick 
and  so  gain  a  Northern  market  for  its  cattle  which 
had  previously  been  excluded  by  rigid  quarantine. 
Dipping  tanks  were  provided  in  all  towns.  The  moun- 
tain men  back  from  a  certain  railway  line  organized 
night  riders  and  dynamited  a  dozen  tanks  in  a  single 
night.  Their  chief  use  for  cattle  was  to  haul  lum- 
ber. They  raised  none  for  market,  had  no  concep- 
tion of  the  relation  of  the  cattle  industry  to  the  pros- 
perity of  the  state,  nor  that  of  the  price  of  beef  to  the 
cost  of  living.  Their  outlook  was  that  of  the  earliest 
frontier;  their  social  morality  belonged  back  of  1835. 

Transitional  Problems.  The  social  inadequacy  of 
the  typical  farmer's  morality  is  explained  by  Dr.  War- 
ren H.  Wilson:  "The  transition  from  the  older 
economy  to  the  new  is  illustrated  in  the  dairy  in- 
dustry which  surrounds  every  great  city.  The  dairy 
farmer  has  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  which  are  purely 
individualistic.  He  believes  that  he  should  not  cheat 
the  customer  in  the  quantity  of  milk.  He  recognizes 
that  it  is  wrong,  therefore,  to  water  the  milk,  but  he 


50  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

has  no  conception  of  social  morality  concerning  milk. 
He  gives  full  measure;  but  he  cares  nothing  about 
purity  of  milk.  He  is  restless  and  feels  himself  op- 
pressed, under  the  demands  of  the  inspector  from  the 
city,  for  ventilation  of  his  barns  and  for  protection 
of  the  milk  from  impurity.  I  have  known  few  milk 
farmers  who  believed  in  giving  pure  milk  and  I  never 
knew  one  whose  conscience  was  at  ease  in  watering 
milk.  That  is,  they  all  believe  in  good  measure  and 
none  believes  in  the  principle  of  sanitation."  *  The 
conditions  which  excused  this  limited  outlook  had  gen- 
erally passed  by  1890. 

The  End  of  an  Era.  The  census  of  that  year  an- 
nounced the  disappearance  of  the  frontier  line  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean.  The  first  rough  conquest  of  the  con- 
tinent was  completed.  True,  there  remained  much 
land  to  be  possessed,  but  it  was  in  general  land  on 
which  little  rain  fell — land  unconquerable  by  the 
farmer  homesteading  by  single  families,  or  by  any  of 
the  ordinary  resources  of  the  farmer  economy.  A  new 
physiographical  province  and  a  new  order  of  society 
demanded  new  home  missions.  Of  current  religious 
movements,  only  the  high  social  organization  of  Mor- 
monism  was  equal  to  it.  How  it  must  be  conquered 
generally  is  the  lesson  taught  by  the  irrigation  pro- 
jects of  California.  In  their  first  stage  they  were  co- 
operative, small  groups  of  settlers  acquiring  a  water- 
supply  and  constructing  irrigation  works  by  their  own 
labor.  But  to  conquer  any  considerable  area  from  the 

1  The  Evolution  of  the  Country  Community,  174,  175. 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     51 

desert  required  far  more  capital  than  such  groups 
could  secure.  In  their  second  stage  therefore  irriga- 
tion projects  were  taken  in  hand  by  corporations 
which  floated  vast  amounts  of  bonds,  employed  expert 
engineers  and  built  magnificent  works,  all  resulting  in 
a  very  high  average  of  failure  and  great  loss  to  in- 
vestors. At  last  it  was  evident  that  the  task  was  too 
great  for  any  one  but  the  state  itself  or  the  Federal 
government  Only  the  state  could  wait  long  enough 
for  returns,  could  control  the  monopolists  and  justly 
distribute  water,  a  matter  so  fundamental  to  any 
civilization  that  the  Almighty  ordinarily  keeps  it  in 
his  own  hands.1  In  brief  the  physiography  of  a  large 
third  of  the  American  continent  ordained  that  the 
farmer  economy  should  cease.  To  the  triumphant 
stream  of  Western  expansion  the  desert  said,  "Hith- 
erto shalt  thou  come,  but  no  further;  and  here  shall 
thy  proud  waves  be  stayed." 

The  Remaining  Frontier.  A  modification  of  this 
generalization  is  made  possible  by  the  development  of 
dry  farming,  which  is  pushing  the  line  of  profitable 
cultivation  farther  westward.  Within  a  year  the  au- 
thor has  seen  the  opening  of  a  northwestern  Indian 
reservation  for  settlement.  The  tiny  claim  shacks 
spring  up  like  magic.  Somebody  has  sold  the  lumber- 
yard at  the  end  of  the  railroad  a  carload  of  blue 
building  paper.  Every  shack  is  hastily  covered  with 
it.  A  single  strand  of  barbed  wire  is  quickly  strung 
to  outline  each  claim.  Prairie  water-holes  are  lo- 

1  Carver,  Principles  of  Rural  Economics,  142. 


52  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

cated  or  shallow  wells  dug.  A  load  of  coal  is  hauled 
weary  miles  and  dumped  unprotected  before  the  shack 
door.  With  feverish  energy  man  and  beast  bend 
themselves  to  the  task  of  breaking  the  soil.  They  will 
give  it  over  only  at  the  last  moment  and  in  time  to 
sod  up  the  cabin  before  winter  closes  in.  Sturdy  Ger- 
man-speaking Russians  most  of  these  settlers  are. 
There  is  something  vastly  impressive  in  the  primitive 
strength  and  dignity  with  which  they  stretch  their 
blue  line  of  civilization  against  the  winter  and  the 
desert  and  wait  the  fickle  moods  of  next  season's  rain. 
Yet  even  in  this  case  the  old  forms  of  farm  economy 
are  inwardly  changed.  First  across  the  line  after  the 
"opening"  was  an  automobile  containing  a  tent  and  a 
safe  and  the  first  institution  of  the  new  area  was  a 
bank.  The  railroad  grade  was  ahead  of  the  settler. 
Pioneering  was  done  with  capital  and  advanced  so- 
cial resources  rather  than  with  bare  hands  before  the 
opening  excursion  trains  brought  thousands  to  the 
land  lottery  by  which  the  claims  were  assigned.  After 
several  days'  association  with  them  one  felt  that 
speculators  greatly  outnumbered  genuine  home-seekers. 
They  were  more  interested  in  lottery  than  in  land. 
The  old  spirit  had  passed  and  the  frontier  is  involved 
in  new  issues,  social  to  the  core. 

Transformed  Tasks.  The  task  of  extensive  home 
missions  therefore  can  never  be  completed,  because 
it  has  vanished.  There  are  unoccupied  regions  into 
which  people  must  be  followed  by  the  Church.  There 
will  still  be  heroic  missionary  service  for  scattered 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT   TO   SOCIAL  AIM     53 

communities  in  thinly  settled  regions.  It  will  demand 
many  men  and  cost  much  money,  especially  when  such 
regions  are  peopled  with  foreigners,  who  have  to  be 
pursued  in  order  to  be  assimilated ;  but  it  will  be  inter- 
esting rather  than  typical,  and  the  social  emphasis 
must  dominate  and  furnish  its  main  constructive  prin- 
ciples; while  in  the  characteristic  processes  of  con- 
quering the  semi-arid  (or  swamp)  regions  the  most 
immediate  factors  will  be  the  thickly  settled  communi- 
ties of  consciously  interdependent  people  and  the  ac- 
tive agency  of  the  state  in  meeting  their  basic  needs. 
Problems  of  intricate  social  organization  will  be  in- 
stantly compelling.  There  will  be  nothing  to  corre- 
spond to  the  long  pioneering  of  our  fathers.  Old 
things  have  passed  away  for  the  parts  of  our  land 
which  still  remain  to  be  populated. 

New  Application  of  Religion.  The  religion  which 
saves  the  newest  frontier  must  prevent  the  epidemic, 
sanctify  the  dipping  vat,  provide  pure  milk  as  well 
as  full  measure,  and  pure  politics  as  well  as  pure 
milk,  besides  controlling  the  monopolists  by  law  as 
well  as  from  within  their  own  conscience  and  taking 
pastoral  care  of  the  dry  farmer  by  automobile. 
And  all  this  does  not  begin  to  take  account  of  the 
revolutionary  inner  change  which  has  overtaken  the 
older  countryside  from  Vermont  to  Oklahoma,  nor 
of  the  inert  rural  millions  of  colored  folks,  nor 
of  the  nation's  cities  thronged  with  strangers,  nor  of 
the  clash  of  industrial  classes — all  of  them  among  the 
dominant  elements  of  the  America  in  which  we  live. 


54  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

The  New  Home  Missions.  All  this  demands  new 
and  socially  redirected  home  missions  and  compels  one 
to  pronounce  upon  the  old  home  missions  Jesus'  ver- 
dict upon  the  best  man  of  a  departed  age :  "Among 
them  that  are  born  of  women  there  hath  not  arisen 
a  greater  than  John  the  Baptist:  yet  he  that  is  but 
little  in  the  kingdom  of  God  is  greater  than  he." 
The  last  quarter  century  has  seen  the  gradual  trans- 
formation of  home  missionary  aims  and  methods  until 
their  social  aspects  are  now  the  dominant  ones.  To 
describe  and  interpret  these  is  the  chief  task  of  this 
book.  Education  has  coined  the  term  redirection  in 
order  to  express  the  parallel  experience  which  it  has 
been  undergoing.  It  has  been  made  manifest  that 
the  redirection  of  home  missions  tends  not  to  destroy 
but  to  fulfil  home  missions  of  the  older  type.  At  the 
same  time  there  are  fairly  sharp  differences.  The 
old  was  extensive;  the  new  is  intensive.  The  old 
thought  it  sought  individual  salvation  chiefly ;  the  new 
knows  that  it  seeks  social  redemption  equally  with  in- 
dividual salvation.  The  further  characteristics  of 
current  home  missions  as  socially  redirected  will  ap- 
pear in  the  successive  chapters.  For  the  present  it  will 
be  sufficient  to  indicate  them  briefly. 

i.  Contrast  Between  Old  and  New.  The  new 
home  missions  are  conscious  of  enlarged  moral 
realms  in  which  the  gospel  is  to  be  realized.  This 
enlargement  comes  by  the  rapid  annexation  of  new 
moral  fields,  but  also  by  the  complication  of  moral 
issues  in  all  fields,  as  the  brain's  surface  is  increased 


SOCIAL  BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     55 

by  the  deepening  of  its  convolutions.  The  demand  that 
one  generation  should  not  waste  the  natural  resources 
of  another,  should  not  devastate  the  forests  of  pos- 
terity nor  burn  up  their  coal,  would  have  seemed  far- 
fetched to  our  fathers ;  still  more  would  it  have  seemed 
remote  from  religious  concern.  They  knew  no  such 
far-reaching  questionings  as  ours,  say,  concerning  the 
equitable  distribution  of  wealth ;  but  their  greater  sur- 
prise would  have  been  to  discover  how  many  other 
moral  issues  this  one  involves,  as  the  modern  con- 
science senses  it.  Their  charity  was  the  giving  of 
alms :  ours  is  the  constructive  statesmanship  which  re- 
duces the  death-rate  of  nations  and  adds  years  to  the 
average  of  human  life.  Their  human  relationships 
were  few,  simple,  stable.  Ours  are  many,  complex, 
and  changing.  Consequently  their  goodness  was  near, 
direct,  and  obvious,  while  ours  is  remote,  necessarily 
devious,  sometimes  obscure.  This  greatly  complicates 
duty  for  the  good  man  of  to-day.  His  is  a  sky-scraper 
morality.  Not  only  must  he  be  good  on  every  floor — 
four  stories  below  ground  and  fifty  above — but  up 
and  down  from  floor  to  floor  run  elevator  shafts,  elec- 
trical connections,  mail  chutes,  telephone  wires,  and 
vacuum  cleaning  tubes.  His  moral  structure  is  not 
only  higher,  but  more  highly  organized  inwardly.  His 
religion  must  be  the  attempt  to  realize  the  program  of 
Christianity  with  all  it  implies  both  as  to  bulk  and  to 
complex  relationship.  Home  missions  are  expanding 
to  match  and  serve  these  enlarged  moral  realms. 
2.  New  Moral  Values.  Current  home  missions  are 


56  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

conscious  of  new  moral  values,  particularly  of  the 
value  of  socially  depressed  or  obstructed  men.  On  the 
vigorous  and  untrammeled  frontier  men  were  unequal 
in  muscle,  health,  and  skill,  but  they  were  equal  in 
status  and  potential  opportunity.  Or  at  the  least  they 
felt  equal  and  more  nearly  regarded  each  other  so 
than  before  or  since.  Now  conscience  is  compelled  to 
concern  itself  more  profoundly  with  second  comers 
— with  those  who  arrived  after  all  the  free  land  and 
most  of  the  natural  advantages  were  occupied  by 
others ;  with  primitive  possessors  who  were  shouldered 
aside;  with  exploited  peoples — former  slaves  or  more 
recent  ones;  with  landless  men,  tenants,  and  wage- 
earners;  with  emigrants  and  depressed  city  masses. 
The  human  values  within  these  social  ranges  are  newly 
sensed  by  the  Church  to-day. 

3.  Concern  the  Entire  Church.  Current  home  mis- 
sions address  themselves  to  the  entire  Church. 
Formerly  they  were  considered  as  expressing  the  lib- 
erality of  the  well-established  churches  to  the  feeble 
frontier  ones.  But  the  social  frontier  is  everywhere. 
New  elements  in  our  civilization  shake  the  foundations 
of  the  strongest  churches.  The  richest  are  frequently 
the  least  effectively  attuned  to  their  present  task 
and  most  in  need  of  social  salvation.  There  are  no 
exempt  religious  classes  to  whom  home  missions  need 
not  minister.  The  boards  now  represent  an  appeal 
to  the  collective  social  conscience.  Vast  sums  of 
money  are  being  spent,  not  to  help  the  religiously 
needy  in  the  frontier  sense,  but  to  reeducate  the  most 


SOCIAL   BY-PRODUCT  TO   SOCIAL  AIM     57 

venerable  elements  and  sections  of  the  Church.  There 
ought  to  be  home  missions  to  theological  seminaries, 
to  endowed  churches,  to  prominent  city  pastors,  and 
there  are.  The  profounder  social  task  universalizes 
the  process. 

4.  Use  Scientific  Method.     Current  home  missions 
are  the  inheritor  of  that  great  clue  to  duty,  the  scien- 
tific method.    The  discovery  that  rigid  collective  tests 
of  goodness  ought  to  be  made,  which  may  serve  as 
guides  to  millions  and  prevent  their  millions  of  mis- 
steps, has  made  all  things  new  in  the  realm  of  morals. 
No  specific  proposal  to  social  conscience  can  evade 
the  necessity  of  submitting  to  such  tests.     The  sec- 
tarian  extension   of   needless   duplicatory  and   rival 
churches,  for  example,  cannot  now  continue,  primarily 
because  the  scientific  spirit  is  so  widespread  and  so 
clearly  presents  the  social  consequences  of  such  a  pol- 
icy.    All  Christian  strategy  presupposes  preliminary 
investigations  and  suggestions  of  this  spirit. 

5.  Call  for  Expert  Leaders.     Concerning     specific 
social  issues  as  they  do,  current  home  missions  have 
developed  a  type  of  expert  leaders  who  may  fairly 
qualify  with  experts  in   other  realms.     They  have 
taught  the  sociologists;  they  have  taught  the  statisti- 
cians. Before  teaching  they  had  to  learn  from  both. 
The  new  leader  is  more  of  a  specialist,  and  (though 
true  prophets  are  scarce)  not  less  of  a  prophet  than  his 
predecessors.     The  social  engineer  tends  to  supersede 
the  ecclesiastic  as  the  typical  church  leader. 

6.  Secure  Better  Team  Play.     Because  with  such 


58  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

an  approach  to  duty  and  under  such  leadership  they 
cannot  be  fundamentally  sectarian  or  sectional,  cur- 
rent home  missions  are  demanding  and  getting  better 
team  play  between  communions  than  ever  before. 
Leaders  in  home  missions  have  the  daily  habit  of  work- 
ing together.  That  this  is  not  exceptional  but  ordi- 
nary is  another  omen  of  the  new  day. 

7.  Necessitate  Profounder  Religious  Sanction.  And 
finally,  current  home  missions  are  compelled  to  find 
profounder  religious  sanction  and  support  than  the 
older  type.  It  is  no  disparagement  of  the  religion  of 
the  past  to  say  that  we  must  have  more  religion  than  it 
had  to  meet  the  complexities  and  interrelations  of  duty 
to-day.  The  intensive  in  method  requires  the  inten- 
sive in  experience.  We  cannot  get  nearer  to  God  than 
our  fathers  did,  but  we  can  bring  God  nearer  to  more 
points  of  life  and  more  grades  of  men.  To  do  this 
will  take  not  less  but  more  of  the  power  which  wrought 
in  Christ  and  now  works  in  us  to  raise  society  to  new- 
ness of  life.  Social  by-product  has  thus  become  social 
aim.  Home  missions  henceforth  have  free  course  to 
the  goal  of  social  redemption  for  the  land  of  our 
love. 


AN  ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  THE 
COUNTRY 


CHAPTER   III 
AN  ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  THE  COUNTRY 

The  Vanishing  Farmer.  The  first  step  toward  an 
adequate  home  missionary  program  for  the  country 
is  the  discovery  that  the  old  one  is  inadequate.  It  is 
inadequate  because  the  man  it  was  suited  to  serve 
no  longer  exists.  Like  the  Indian  and  the  trapper  who 
preceded  him  the  farmer  is  gone — a  vanishing  race. 
True,  there  are  five  million  more  Americans  on  the 
soil  than  there  were  ten  years  ago,  and  nine  people  have 
been  born  in  the  country  or  moved  thither  for  every- 
one who  came  away.  Yet  those  who  stayed  have  suf- 
fered inner  change  and  those  who  came  have  brought 
or  received  another  heritage  than  that  of  yesterday. 
The  open  country  is  peopled  with  a  new  type  which 
home  missions,  first  of  all,  must  understand.  The 
frontier  line  has  been  drowned  in  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
Nearly  all  of  America's  free  land  which  can  profitably 
be  conquered  by  single  families  has  been  taken  up. 
Homestead  ing  is  no  longer  a  significant  resource  for 
surplus  population.  Now  we  are  adjusting  ourselves  to 
the  consciousness  that  somebody  has  preempted  nearly 
all  the  farm  land  there  is.  And,  because  millions  still 

61 


62  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

crowd  in  who  want  it,  it  has  become  immensely  valu- 
able. 

Rising  Land  Values.  Rural  churches  seeking  aid 
from  the  board  of  which  the  writer  is  secretary  must 
answer  the  question,  "How  much  have  land  values 
increased  in  your  community  in  the  last  five  years?" 
A  recent  answer  read,  "250  per  cent."  The  most 
frequent  answer  is  from  25  to  50  per  cent.  And  25 
per  cent,  would  be  the  answer  even  in  many  sections 
of  the  older  farming  states.  For  the  country  at  large 
land  values  increased  100  per  cent,  between  1900  and 
1910.  One  day  the  farmer  waked  up  to  the  discovery 
that,  under  such  conditions,  while  one  might  make  a 
living  or  a  little  better  by  working  hard,  one  might 
become  wealthy  by  doing  nothing.  Indeed  he  could 
scarcely  avoid  becoming  wealthy  if  he  owned  a  signifi- 
cant amount  of  land.  Following  this  clue,  he  found 
himself  facing  three  alternatives :  either  to  borrow 
money  and  buy  more  land  for  its  rise  in  value,  or  else 
to  rent  the  farm  and  wait  for  its  rise  in  value,  or 
finally  to  sell  the  farm  and  buy  a  larger  amount  of 
cheaper  land  in  order  to  profit  by  its  rise  in  value. 

The  End  of  the  Old  Order.  Choosing  any  of  these 
alternatives  makes  the  farmer  a  speculator;  the  sec- 
ond makes  him  also  an  absentee  landlord;  the  third 
makes  him  also  an  emigrant.  All  focus  attention  upon 
rise  in  land  values  instead  of  upon  farming.  All 
quench  the  inner  moral  light  of  the  true  farmer, 
namely,  his  attachment  to  the  land  as  a  homestead,  a 
place  whereon  to  build  a  home,  and  substitute  an  at- 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      63 

titude  which  regards  the  land  as  something  to  make 
money  from — and  chiefly  unearned  money.  When 
these  motives  operate  sharply,  the  kind  of  man  whom 
home  missions  chiefly  dealt  with  up  to  1890,  whom 
they  knew  how  to  help  and  save,  whose  typical  insti- 
tutions they  largely  created,  simply  ceases  to  be.  The 
life  goes  out  of  the  old  order  of  rural  life. 

New  Factors.  Before  determining  her  new  pro- 
gram, the  Church  must  understand  the  concomitants 
and  consequences  of  this  epochal  change — both  the 
harmful  and  the  hopeful.  It  must  measure  the  de- 
cline of  rural  civilization,  of  its  population,  its  birth- 
rate, its  landownership,  its  civic  and  private  virtue; 
the  decline  of  its  schools,  its  rural  social  centers,  and 
the  dying  off  of  the  country  churches.  It  must  get 
a  broad-minded  and  ardent  appreciation  of  the  new 
sources  of  rural  strength — of  its  new  physical  re- 
sources like  good  roads  and  the  gas  engine,  its  techni- 
cal resources  in  scientific  agriculture,  its  political  re- 
sources in  the  taxable  enthusiasm  of  a  mighty  people, 
its  sufficient  economic  resources  in  the  present  and 
prospective  profits  of  farming. 

Moral  and  Social  Elements.  Particularly  must  the 
Church  sense  the  moral  and  esthetic  resources  of  coun- 
try life.  Dr.  Warren  H.  Wilson  argues  hopefully 
that  the  sifting  of  population  between  city  and  coun- 
try is  a  division  of  the  nation  between  equally  good 
stocks,  each  selecting  its  fitting  environment;  and  not, 
as  some  have  made  us  to  fear,  the  leaving  behind  in 
the  country  of  the  inert  and  inefficient.  At  any  rate, 


64  THE  NEW  HOME  "MISSIONS 

there  is  a  tremendous  leaven  in  the  open  country  of 
strong,  sound  folks  who  are  there  because  they  pre- 
fer to  be  there — who  have  followed  the  soil  for  its 
lure  and  have  hallowed  it  with  their  love.  Nor  are 
the  city  man's  back-to-the-country  tendencies  alto- 
gether to  be  despised,  even  though  they  may  get  ne 
further  in  the  first  generation  than  the  suburbanite's 
rather  ineffective  garden.  There  are  a  hundred  Chi- 
cago boys  in  the  Illinois  College  of  Agriculture,  and 
more  to  follow. 

The  New  Farmer.  But  the  country's  best  moral 
resource  is  the  young  working  farmer  of  this  genera- 
tion, who  with  his  complete  education  and  his  mind 
fully  open  to  the  advantages  of  the  city,  has  deliber- 
ately chosen  the  life  of  the  countryman  for  his  lot. 
Along  with  his  knowledge  and  enthusiasm  he  often 
cherishes  a  unique  because  newly  enlightened  pride, 
tenderness,  and  devoutness  toward  the  life  of  the 
farm.  This  idealistic  note  in  the  young  farmer  is 
unmistakable,  to  develop  which,  with  all  its  finest  im- 
plications, is  the  high  task  of  religion. 

Patience  for  Reconquest.  For  so  long  lingering 
with  factors  preliminary  to  the  specific  work  of  the 
Church  in  the  country,  the  apology,  if  it  needs  one, 
is  that  it  has  been  in  search  of  the  only  clue  to  duty 
which  the  Church  pretends  to  possess.  She  knows  she 
must  approach  all  her  problems  humbly  through  pre- 
cise social  knowledge.  On  the  old  ground  of  her  chief 
missionary  triumphs  she  turns  to  a  patient  doing-all- 
over-again  in  a  profounder  sense.  She  grew  up  with 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      65 

the  farmer.  She  followed  him  through  forest,  over 
prairie  and  desert,  to  the  utmost  sea.  She  thought  at 
times  that  her  work  would  be  done  when  its  geo- 
graphical expansion  was  complete.  She  now  sees  that 
it  is  God's  way  that  the  Church  should  never  be  out 
of  a  pioneering  job  anywhere.  Social  change  has 
broken  down  many  of  the  seeming  successes  of  the 
past;  it  has  also  brought  forth  the  forces  of  a  better 
reconstruction.  Rural  humanity  is  to  be  cultivated 
over  again  for  salvation's  sake  with  improved  ma- 
chinery. Intensive  moral  husbandry  is  to  be  applied. 
There  is  to  be  wider  appreciation  of  the  social  inter- 
relations of  souls.  A  keener  conservationist  con- 
science is  to  sense  the  values  of  humbler  men.  Good 
seed  will  yield  thirty  if  not  an  hundredfold.  In  spite 
of  somewhat  diminishing  returns  the  fields  are  white 
unto  harvest.  No  program  of  the  Church's  specific 
duty  could  possibly  be  adequate  which  did  not  faith- 
fully count  all  resources,  trace  all  relationships,  scien- 
tifically appraise  all  factors,  and  lovingly  visualize  the 
totality  of  rural  life  with  which  religion  is  concerned. 
Rural  Leadership.  The  first  direct  contribution  to 
rural  life  by  which  the  Church  purposes  to  make  her 
service  adequate  is  leadership.  This  was  her  oldest 
contribution  to  the  nation.  Home  missions  were  essen- 
tially a  far-sighted  plan  to  supply  strategically  placed 
superior  men  to  the  plastic  society  of  the  West.  Now 
that  its  first  plasticity  is  over,  now  that  the  task  is 
largely  one  of  remolding  old  institutions,  now  that 
mere  goodness  and  good  sense  are  no  longer  infallible 


66  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

guides  to  right  results,  it  is  required  that  the  supe- 
rior man  shall  be  an  expert.  The  Church  must  fur- 
nish the  rural  life  expert 

The  Layman's  Part.  The  only  agent  is  not  neces- 
sarily the  ordained  minister  of  religion.  The  employ- 
ment of  lay  expert  service  by  the  Church  is  increas- 
ing in  most  of  its  fields  of  service.  With  all  excep- 
tional rural  groups — negroes,  foreigners,  mountain- 
eers— the  Christian  school  must  supplement  the 
church,  and  indeed  precede  many  of  its  organized  ac- 
tivities. This  fact  calls  for  thousands  of  lay  mission- 
aries with  adaptation  to  work  in  the  open  coun- 
try. The  Sunday-school  worker  has  in  the  country 
a  field  peculiarly  his  own.  Almost  everywhere  the  rural 
social  settlement  would  be  a  mightily  apt  agency  of 
betterment.  Stripped  to  its  essence,  this  would  simply 
mean  that  a  family  or  two  of  Christian  farmers,  who 
can  farm,  should  move  into  a  community  for  the 
sake  of  the  community  and  go  into  profitable  and 
permanent  farming,  taking  gradually  the  natural  place 
of  leadership  to  which  community  forces  should  call 
them.  The  first  denomination  which  has  wit  and 
courage  enough  to  supply  such  leaders  as  part  of  its 
home  missionary  program  will  touch  the  center  of  the 
rural  life  problem.  At  the  same  time  the  expert  rural 
leader  which  the  Church  will  and  ought  chiefly  to  fur- 
nish is  the  minister  of  the  gospel.  He  must  be  pre- 
pared, placed,  paid,  and  made  permanent. 

Preparing  the  Ministry.  Except  the  theological 
seminary  repent  and  become  rurally  minded  it  cannot 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY     67 

prepare  such  a  minister.  And  its  antecedents  and  pres- 
ent environment  are  a  great  barrier  to  repentance.  We 
know  that  it  occasionally  puts  rural  economics  into  its 
curriculum,  and  holds  country-life  conferences;  but 
these  will  not  suffice.  For,  in  the  first  place,  the  semi- 
nary's atmosphere  is  non-rural;  it  has  been  getting 
most  of  its  students  from  the  church  school,  which  is 
a  recreant  institution  country-wise.  Located  generally 
in  the  small  town,  the  church  school  has  been  steadily 
engaged  in  impoverishing  the  country  by  educating 
its  natural  leaders  away  from  it,  and  adding  insult 
to  injury  by  boasting  of  this  triumph.  When  its  cul- 
ture has  been  modern  at  all  it  has  been  obsessed  by  so- 
cial problems  interpreted  in  city  terms.  In  the  great 
rural  states,  country-mindedness  in  education  has  ex- 
isted chiefly  in  the  publicly  supported  universities  and 
agricultural  colleges.  Unless  the  theological  seminary 
then  can  revolutionize  both  its  source  and  itself,  it  can- 
not adequately  serve  the  country-life  program. 

New  Theological  Centers.  Perhaps  the  practical 
solution  lies  in  the  development  of  a  new  type  of 
training-school  for  the  rural  ministry  in  connection 
with  the  state  universities.  Many  of  the  denomina- 
tions have  already  discovered  that  the  bulk  of  their 
youth  are  going,  not  to  the  denominational  college, 
but  to  the  public  institutions.  They  are  therefore  be- 
ginning to  found  church  houses  and  Biblical  chairs  ad- 
junct to  the  universities,  to  establish  university  pas- 
torates and  the  like.  Now  Madison,  Wisconsin,  and 
Champaign,  Illinois,  being  among  the  chief  centers  of 


68  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

agricultural  learning,  ought  naturally  also  to  be  among 
the  great  theological  centers  of  the  nation.  The  semi- 
naries located  in  Chicago  could  do  much  worse  than 
to  send  their  prospective  country  ministers  to  these 
places  for  their  senior  or  postgraduate  years.  They 
could  get  their  theology  in  the  denominational  house 
and  their  rural  economics  in  the  university,  meanwhile 
drinking  in  an  atmosphere  charged  with  the  sense  of 
responsible  and  resultful  rural  service  to  entire  states. 
In  the  East,  Drew  Theological  Seminary,  at  Madison, 
New  Jersey,  might  ally  with  the  neighboring  Rut- 
gers College,  at  New  Brunswick,  New  Jersey; 
Rochester  Theological  Seminary,  Rochester,  New 
York,  with  Cornell  University,  Ithaca,  New  York; 
while  one  of  the  superfluous  urban  seminaries  of  New 
England  might  glorify  itself  by  establishing  itself 
as  a  connecting  and  completing  link  between  Amherst 
College  and  the  Massachusetts  Agricultural  College,  at 
Amherst,  Massachusetts,  and  becoming  an  exclusive 
agency  for  the  training  of  rural  pastors. 

Placing  the  Minister.  Granted  his  preparation  by 
some  adaptation  of  agencies  yet  to  be  perfected,  the 
country  minister  has  next  to  be  placed.  There  can  be 
no  social  adequacy  in  conditions  which  place  him  in 
a  competitive  church  which  divides  a  rural  community 
rather  than  unites  it.  To  place  the  minister  strategi- 
cally from  the  standpoint  of  public  welfare,  there  must 
be  team-play  between  the  denominations.  In  this  mat- 
ter the  difficulty  of  the  situation  is  largely  expressed 
by  the  old  rural  formula,  "One's  afraid,  the  other 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      69 

dassent."  We  know  that  the  leading  denominations 
have  comity  principles  to  which  their  missionary 
boards  are  committed,  that  they  are  employing  the 
survey  method  in  whole  groups  of  states  as  the  basis 
of  Christian  strategy,  that  they  are  rapidly  adjusting 
cases  of  overlapping  and  duplication  between  local 
churches.  The  representatives  of  eighteen  communions 
have  voted  that  the  era  of  extension  is  over  in  certain 
trans-Missouri  regions,  and  have  united  upon  a  rural 
church  commission  to  advise  what  intensive  program 
comes  next.  On  the  other  hand,  local  surveys  gener- 
ally show  that  rural  people  are  only  negatively  and 
traditionally  sectarian.  Rouse  a  healthy  community 
spirit  on  agricultural  matters  and  they  will  get  to- 
gether religiously  whenever  they  know  that  their 
leaders  will  let  them.  An  adequate  program  of  plac- 
ing the  rural  leader  will  simply  assume  and  act  upon 
the  new  resources  of  denominational  cooperation  and 
self-sacrifice,  just  as  it  assumes  and  uses  the  new 
science  and  technique  of  the  farm. 

Paying  the  Minister.  Any  agricultural  situation 
which  can  support  the  farmer  adequately  can  also 
support  the  preacher  adequately,  but  it  ought  never 
to  be  able  to  support  a  superfluous  preacher.  The 
country  needs  to  conserve  its  resources,  and  has  no 
money  to  waste  on  churches.  For  a  community 
church,  really  serving  the  higher  life  of  a  successful 
farming  group,  it  can  afford  to  pay  well,  and  it  should 
be  made  to  do  so.  Home  missionary  policy  will  be 
very  foolish  if  it  does  not  insist  on  an  adequate  salary 


70  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

for  the  rural  minister,  and  it  ought  to  enlist  in  this 
behalf  some  of  the  forces  which  have  so  successfully 
advanced  other  rural  interests.  Better  prices  for  farm 
products  ought  to  mean  better  pay  for  country 
preachers.  The  church  is  modest  in  asking  for  herself 
— but  she  does  think  that  the  agricultural  colleges, 
the  rural  politicians,  and  the  social  experts  generally 
should  get  behind  a  campaign  of  education  for  the 
adequate  support  of  the  great  voluntary  institutions 
which  must  furnish  rural  leadership  in  the  highest 
things.  This  opportunity  of  cooperation  she  oilers 
them  in  her  great  task. 

Keeping  the  Minister.  After  the  church  gets  its 
rural  leader  it  must  keep  him.  This  she  has  largely 
failed  to  do  in  the  past.  The  choice  young  minister 
has  been  willing  to  serve  a  rural  apprenticeship  but 
not  to  live  a  rural  li'fe.  In  1890  the  Yale  band  of  six 
young  men  went  to  Washington.  Now  two  are  mis- 
sionary secretaries,  one  a  city  pastor,  one  a  social 
worker  in  Chicago,  while  a  fifth  preaches  in  a  town 
of  ten  thousand.  But  one  remains  in  Washington  and 
he  is  a  college  president.  The  kingdom  of  God  is 
doubtless  richer  but  surely  the  state  is  poorer  for  their 
going.  But  now,  if  there  is  anything  in  vocational 
guidance,  it  would  have  been  better  to  give  Washing- 
ton a  type  of  men  permanently  suited  to  rural  leader- 
ship. And  if  the  rural  population  is  indeed  equal  to 
the  city  population,  but  temperamentally  different,  it 
will  be  wise  in  the  rural  minister  to  perfect  the  rural 
type.  Give  him  the  same  fundamental  education  with 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      71 

the  city  youth — as  broad,  as  generous,  as  modern — 
then  let  him  specialize  on  rural  life  and  go  to  the 
country  to  stay.  Country  life  in  its  best  interpre- 
tation is  big  enough  in  economic  possibilities,  esthetic 
satisfactions,  and  moral  enthusiasm  permanently  to 
fill  any  life  which  is  fundamentally  attuned  to  it. 
Such  a  man  will  find  the  spheres  of  his  promotion  in 
the  superintendency  of  country  churches,  in  rural 
bishoprics,  in  rural  social  organization,  in  the  con- 
solidated school  and  the  extension  work  of  the  agri- 
cultural college.  If  he  can  make  the  moral  conquest 
of  the  small  town,  causing  it  to  serve  the  country 
rather  than  ape  the  city,  he  will  have  done  a  service 
of  unparalleled  social  import  for  the  nation.  Thus 
rural  leadership  which  is  adequately  prepared,  placed, 
and  paid  may  become  permanent. 

Developing  Community  Spirit.  Such  leadership 
will  then  address  itself  to  the  outstanding  deficien- 
cies of  the  country  life,  such  as  the  lack  of  community 
spirit.  Rural  America  was  settled  by  independent 
family  groups  in  competitive  economic  relations,  who 
have  never  been  brought  adequately  into  community 
experiences  and  relations.  The  old  rural  community, 
such  as  it  was,  was  too  small.  Team-haul  distance 
over  poor  roads,  which  constituted  the  limits  of  the 
rural  community,  did  not  include  enough  or  enough 
kinds  of  people  to  save  life  from  pettiness  and  inbreed- 
ing of  ideas.  People  knew  or  imagined  too  much 
about  one  another.  Good  roads  increase  the  team- 
haul  distance  and  enlarge  the  community.  The  auto- 


72  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

mobile  both  enlarges  and  enriches  it.  For  the  true 
correlative  of  community  is  variety.  The  accessible 
range  of  rural  life  is  to  include  both  more  and  more 
varied  elements.  One  must  think  largely  of  it,  for- 
getting its  old  poverty  and  fragmentariness.  Instead 
of  the  country  store  which  it  has  lost  to  the  mail-order 
house,  the  newly  mobile  farm  population  is  to 
possess  itself  of  a  considerable  center,  with  its  co- 
operative store  and  creamery,  its  consolidated  school, 
its  well-equipped  church,  and  ultimately  its  community 
bank.  The  actual  farm  population  is  not  to  be  or  to 
be  felt  inferior  to  the  folks  who  work  in  these  insti- 
tutions, for  the  farmer  will  own  them  all.  Because  of 
their  more  varied  relations,  and  especially  because  they 
are  no  longer  merely  competitive  family  groups,  coun- 
try people  will  draw  more  effectively  together  and 
will  achieve  the  conditions  of  community  life. 

United  Through  the  Church.  As  has  already  been 
agreed,  the  church  cannot  serve  such  a  community  by 
being  a  divisive  rather  than  a  uniting  institution,  and 
the  sectarian  temper  makes  it  divisive,  whether  it 
burdens  the  situation  with  actual  rival  churches  or 
not.  The  church  must  become  community-minded.  It 
cannot  repair  the  damage  of  community  division  by 
any  saving  of  souls,  since  the  divided  community  can- 
not so  organize  its  resources  as  to  conserve  and  utilize 
saved  souls.  Without  the  community  spirit,  saved 
souls  must  either  flee  to  the  city  for  usefulness  or  else 
fall  from  grace. 

The  Gospel  of  Cooperation.      As     a     community 


A   STRONG  VILLAGE   CHURCH 

ID  a  population  of  Q;I  this  church  enrolls  about  .125  people,  and  provides  for  the  social 
and  religious  life  of  the  community 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      73 

agency,  the  church  will  concern  itself  primarily  with 
forms  of  cooperation — civic,  economic,  educational, 
and  religious.  Roads  and  schools,  the  chief  civic  as- 
sets of  the  country  community,  will  be  its  twin  re- 
sponsibilities. The  grange  and  the  market  will  be 
its  allies.  Its  gospel  will  concern  these  spheres  of 
religion.  They  will  be  the  concrete  subject-matter  of 
preaching,  interpreted  in  terms  of  community  sin  and 
salvation. 

Worship  and  Play.  Again,  rural  leadership, 
through  the  church,  will  address  itself  to  the  crying 
needs  of  worship  and  of  play.  Those  two  words  be- 
long together.  The  affinities  of  worship  are  not  with 
work;  its  place  in  religion  is  not  the  same  as  that  of 
work.  There  is  no  actual  service  of  God  but  work. 
Worship  is  something  else — a  second,  equal  good. 
It  is  the  play  of  the  spiritual  life.  It  idealizes  and 
summarizes  its  most  significant  points,  its  highest  joys 
and  deepest  solemnities,  like  birth,  death,  the  sense 
of  sin,  the  relief  of  salvation.  But  its  function  is  the 
function  of  play.  It  is  necessary  to  urge  this  stub- 
bornly, because  the  rural  mind,  while  devout  as  to 
prayer,  is  not  ordinarily  devout  as  to  local  history, 
nor  as  to  the  season's  crops,  nor  as  to  children's 
games,  nor  as  to  beauty  in  garb  and  manner.  Because 
it  is  not  devout  in  these  matters,  its  young  life  aban- 
dons it  for  the  city,  which  does  idealize  life  in  steel 
and  stone,  in  the  civic  spectacle,  in  libraries  and  gal- 
leries, in  baseball  games,  moving  pictures,  and  even 
in  milliners'  windows.  The  country,  too,  must  be 


74  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

given  its  parade,  in  which  life  is  admired  and  made 
to  glitter.  And  how  rich  its  materials  for  idealiza- 
tion! The  pageant  of  its  founders  and  their  deeds, 
the  anniversaries  of  the  Christian  year,  especially  the 
seed-time  and  the  harvest  festivals  which  Chris- 
tian got  from  Jew  and  Jew  from  pagan,  the  local 
fair,  the  corn  and  tomato  club  and  other  children's 
contests,  community  athletic  teams,  Boy  Scouts  and 
Camp  Fire  Girls,  the  singing  school  and  the  school 
entertainment — all  these  the  church  will  foster  and 
promote  as  its  own  because  they  are  the  community's, 
and  because  only  when  life  in  all  its  reaches  is  ideal- 
ized, played  upon  by  the  imagination  and  played  at 
through  some  recreational  expression,  can  its  totality 
be  significantly  summed  up  in  the  worship  of  God. 

Emancipating  the  Individual.  Again,  and  to  make 
its  country  life  program  finally  adequate,  the  church 
must  address  itself  to  individuality  which  has  been 
crushed  in  the  excessive  solidarity  of  the  farm  family. 
The  farm  family  had  in  excess  the  cohesion  which  the 
farm  community  lacked.  As  an  economic  and  moral 
group-unit,  it  was  so  closely  knit  as  to  forbid  play  to 
personality.  It  cramped  the  self-expression,  particu- 
larly of  the  wife  and  children.  "I  feared  my  father; 
I  dared  not  love  him"  is  the  too  frequent  confession 
of  the  country-bred  man.  The  country  home  showed 
the  worst  vices  of  unregulated  production.  No  fac- 
tory legislation  socialized  its  methods.  It  exacted  work 
and  paid  no  wages.  Its  hours  of  labor  were  un- 
limited. It  employed  child  labor,  not  with  equally 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      75 

harmful  effects  as  those  of  industry,  but  in  the  same 
exploiting  spirit.  John  Brown  lived  and  fought  in 
Kansas,  but  Professor  McKeever  has  had  to  face  the 
farmers  of  that  state  with  the  startling  challenge,  "Do 
you  own  your  daughter?"  The  West  in  general  has 
housed  its  stock  better  than  it  has  housed  its  men. 
Rural  life  has  still  to  be  rendered  into  the  fundamental 
terms  of  human  well-being.  Its  methods  must  be  re- 
vised to  get  the  fullest  value  for  the  individual  life. 

Farm  Mothers  and  Farm  Children.  Now  the  church 
is  against  all  exploitation,  all  harmful  overwork  of 
women  and  children,  all  grinding  labor.  She  stands 
for  education,  specialization,  a  fair  chance  for  in- 
dividual talent  within,  and  not  at  the  cost  of  run- 
ning away  from,  rural  life.  The  farm  boy  and  girl 
must  have  room  for  initiative,  a  garden  or  a  poultry 
yard  of  their  own,  some  ready  money,  a  weekly  half- 
holiday.  The  farm  mother  must  have  machinery 
in  the  kitchen,  some  definable  right  in  the  family 
purse,  time  for  her  visiting  and  her  club.  The  coun- 
try church  must  enrich  her  life  by  organization  for 
all  ages  and  sexes.  Doubtless  the  disintegration  of 
family  life  and  the  division  of  its  members'  inter- 
ests have  gone  too  far  in  the  city.  In  the  country  how- 
ever they  must  be  carried  further  than  in  the  past.  So 
long  as  town  spells  individual  freedom  and  country 
spells  bondage,  the  forceful  boy  or  girl  will  not  be 
slow  to  choose.  The  Church  has  first  to  free  and 
then  to  socialize  the  individual  units  of  rural  society. 

The  Things  That  Are  Caesar's.     All  the  foregoing 


76  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

is  to  confess  that  the  Church  is  not  to  furnish  technical 
leadership  in  agricultural  processes.  This  the  state 
is  prepared  to  supply  in  rich  abundance.  It  is  the 
church's  cue  to  specialize  in  the  fields  which  she  au- 
thoritatively commands,  those  of  religion  and  funda- 
mental social  organization.  But  nothing  is  more  cer- 
tain than  that  without  her  authority  in  these  fields 
the  entire  program  of  rural  betterment  is  blocked. 
Twenty  years  ago  scientific  agriculture  in  America 
was  in  its  infancy.  Its  intellectual  outlook  was  vitiated 
by  crude  conclusions  from  misunderstood  Darwinism. 
Its  interests  were  narrowly  technical,  its  spirit  materi- 
alistic, its  exponents  one-sided  in  culture.  They  were 
despised  by  the  classical  colleges,  called  "dungists," 
and  some  of  them  justified  the  appellation.  Then  came 
the  wonderful  burst  of  new  agricultural  knowledge 
and  an  avalanche  of  financial  resources  for  the  sup- 
port of  research  and  popularization.  Next  dawned 
the  consciousness  of  the  high  social  mission,  of  the 
statesmanship,  of  rural  rehabilitation. 

The  Question  of  Motive.  All  went  well  till  the 
rural  betterment  movement  came  to  the  question  of 
motive.  Then  technique  and  taxes  alike  felt  suddenly 
inadequate,  paralyzed  with  a  sense  of  moral  bank- 
ruptcy. One  saw  the  humorous  spectacle  of  previ- 
ously self-confident  experts  scurrying  to  the  Church 
and  theological  seminary  to  find  some  one  who  com- 
manded the  sources  of  motive — some  one  who  could 
make  the  people  of  rural  communities  cease  gossip- 
ing and  begin  to  work  together  in  the  light  of  a  new 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      77 

day.  One  saw  also  what  was  not  humorous  at  all  but 
solemnly  joyous,  namely,  the  technical  experts  them- 
selves often  struck  pious  by  the  sense  of  the  need  of 
an  adequate  power  to  fill  and  thrill  the  great  resources 
of  their  securing.  Some  of  the  most  genuine,  devout, 
and  practical  Christian  messages  of  to-day  are  com- 
ing from  the  agricultural  colleges  and  the  rural  econo- 
mists. They  fully  appreciate  and  confess  the  central 
place  of  the  church  in  rural  life.  They  call  for — 
the  situation  calls  for — a  profound  and  adequate  pro- 
gram of  rural  evangelization  in  intimate  and  mutually 
inspirational  fellowship  with  the  great  economic  and 
technical  program  of  the  state  in  behalf  of  the  open 
country. 

Average  Conditions.  The  current  program  of  ru- 
ral betterment  is  wonderfully  complete  and  attractive. 
It  by  no  means  compasses,  however,  the  needs  of  vast 
areas  of  America  on  which  people  are  trying  to  live 
from  the  soil.  It  assumes  rather  land  of  sufficient 
natural  fertility  to  support  rural  population  of  aver- 
age density,  as  well  as  a  population  of  average  intelli- 
gence and  capacity  to  utilize  American  advantages,  to 
whom  the  great  resources  of  the  state  and  nation  for 
rural  betterment  are  equitably  extended.  Under  such 
conditions,  the  better  methods  and  disposal  of  re- 
sources, agricultural,  social,  and  religious,  which  con- 
stitute our  adequate  program,  may  be  trusted  to  issue 
in  a  high  degree  of  happiness  and  prosperity.  Home 
missions  then  will  consist  only  temporarily  and  inci- 
dentally in  extending  financial  aid  to  rural  churches. 


78  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Professor  Carver's  challenge  may  be  fully  accepted: 
If  Christianity  means  better  farming,  as  it  should,  the 
better  land  will  inevitably  get  into  Christian  hands, 
which  in  the  long  run  will  be  amply  able  to  sustain 
their  own  churches. 

Poor  Populations  on  Poor  Lands.  But  on  the  vast 
areas  where  these  conditions  cannot  pertain  rural 
home  missions  must  continue  to  mean  something  quite 
different — and  more  expensive.  Where,  for  example, 
there  is  a  heavier  population  than  the  land  can  sus- 
tain in  decency,  degraded  conditions  of  life  are  bound 
to  result,  typified  for  instance  in  the  highlander  of  the 
Southern  Appalachians.  Here  are  sterile  mountain 
counties  with  as  many  people  per  square  mile  as  live 
in  the  fruitful  prairie  states.  From  the  standpoint  of 
the  economist  the  people  should  leave  the  land  and 
come  away  to  some  place  where  they  can  make  a  de- 
cent living.  Yet,  strangely,  they  love  their  wild  and 
barren  acres  as  home.  While  they  stay,  home  mis- 
sions must  stay  with  them.  Moral  victories  may  be 
won  even  on  a  field  which  is  economically  untenable. 

Survey  of  a  Mountain  Community.  Where  one  of 
the  narrow  southernmost  spurs  of  the  Appalachians 
penetrates  a  seaboard  state  lives  to-day  a  community 
of  78  souls  under  essentially  pioneer  conditions.  These 
.78  constitute  13  families.  There  are  two  other  house- 
holds, composed  in  the  one  case  of  a  widow  dependent 
on  a  Confederate  pension  and  the  community's  single 
spinster,  and  in  the  other  of  two  missionary  teachers. 
There  are  three  orphans,  one  child  cripple,  and  one 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      79 

illegitimate  among  them,  two  aged  couples,  and  one 
bachelor  hired  man — the  only  wage-earner  of  the 
group.  All  the  rest  make  their  living,  such  as  it  is, 
in  family  groups  under  economic  independence.  Prac- 
tically all  of  them  own  land  (which  is  worth  from  two 
to  ten  dollars  per  acre),  and  all  of  them  subsist  par- 
tially by  its  cultivation.  Yet  but  one  of  the  thirteen 
families  really  farms  for  a  livelihood  and  that  one 
only  by  the  renting  of  hay-land  in  the  valley  below  to 
supplement  the  meager  acres  which  the  mountain  af- 
fords. Five  do  this  farming  entirely  without  wheels, 
each  with  a  single  work  animal  for  which  they  cannot 
produce  sufficient  feed. 

Hewers  of  Wood.  Seven  of  the  thirteen  families 
live  chiefly  by  the  forest  itself.  Its  first  wealth  has 
been  appropriated  by  the  lumberman  long  ago.  Such 
rare  lumber  tracts  as  remain  are  exploited  by  capital 
with  machinery  and  trained  men.  It  is  left  to  these 
seven  mountaineers  to  go  lonely  into  the  depleted  for- 
est with  saw  and  ax  to  cut  tie  timbers  for  the  railroad. 
The  smaller  trees  they  sometimes  turn  into  fire-wood 
for  neighboring  village  people.  One  man  splits  the 
rarer  cedar  or  poplar  into  shingles.  Nothing  more 
complicated,  more  akin  to  the  great  world's  busy  in- 
dustry, is  attempted  than  this. 

Other  Occupations.  Besides  being  hewers  of  wood, 
three  heads  of  families  perform  the  function  of  trans- 
portation for  the  rest,  hauling  ties  to  the  railroad  and 
supplies  to  the  mountain.  One  of  these  is  also  the 
community's  only  approach  to  a  capitalist.  He  owns 


8o  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

four  or  five  yoke  of  oxen  and  employs  the  aforemen- 
tioned hired  man.  A  profane  and  forceful  Scotch- 
Irishman  from  another  state,  he  married  a  wife  well 
educated  in  the  missionary  school,  half  kindly  and 
half  cruelly  keeps  an  orphan  child,  and  represents  the 
embryo  exploiter  of  his  neighbors.  Two  more  fami- 
lies supplement  their  living  from  the  soil  by  keeping 
the  community  in  touch  with  the  outer  world ;  a  man 
as  mail-carrier,  a  woman  as  postmistress.  The  post- 
office  is  the  sole  indigenous  community  center,  but  it 
is  soon  to  be  abolished  and  the  livelihood  of  two  fam- 
ilies cut  in  two  by  the  extension  of  rural  free  delivery. 
Then  both  families  say  they  must  move  away. 

Literacy,  Health,  Morals.  The  adults  of  four  of 
the  thirteen  families  are  fairly  literate,  but  none  of 
these  is  native  of  the  mountains  and  but  one  of  the 
state.  Of  the  52  children  of  the  community  28  are 
of  school  age  according  to  local  interpretation,  and  22 
of  these  are  enrolled.  There  are  four  months  of  school 
term  to  be  provided  with  $200  of  public  funds,  but 
these  have  usually  been  supplemented  with  three  or 
four  months  more  of  mission  school  term.  The 
health  of  the  community  is  good.  There  is  little 
tuberculosis  (the  crippled  child  probably  has  it),  and 
no  typhoid  locally  originating.  Eyes  are  in  fair  con- 
dition and  hookworm  not  suspected.  The  children  are 
usually  bright.  It  is  not  clear  whether  the  few  cases 
of  excessive  dulness  are  due  either  to  mental  defect 
or  to  saturation  in  tobacco  from  infancy.  Most  of 
the  women  dip  snuff.  Drunkenness  is  rare.  The 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY  81 

single  case  of  illegitimacy  within  memory  was  punished 
by  the  relentless  ostracism  of  the  woman.  Family 
groups  persist  loyally,  as  under  pioneer  conditions 
they  must.  On  the  other  hand  a  boy  of  seventeen 
married  a  girl  of  fifteen  and  to-day  at  nineteen  is  the 
father  of  two  children. 

Survival  of  Primitive  Religion.  Denominationally 
speaking  the  community  is  first  of  all  "hard-shell" 
Baptist,  then  Methodist  and  missionary  Baptist.  But 
none  of  these  churches  has  ever  had  permanent  or- 
ganizations or  maintained  stated  services.  Just  now 
the  only  acutely  religious  people  are  the  Holy  Rollers 
who  have  come  up  from  the  mines  and  converted  the 
three  or  four  remotest  families  of  the  community. 
Their  characteristics  are  the  claim  of  sanctification, 
the  gift  of  tongues,  and  religious  emotion  expressed 
in  physical  paroxysms.  They  meet  in  a  mountain 
cabin.  Suddenly  babel  breaks  forth.  The  lights  are 
extinguished.  They  throw  themselves  together  on  the 
floor  and  roll  till  exhausted.  Recently  a  woman  per- 
sisted in  the  exercise  for  half  a  day,  lying  in  the  open 
air  before  her  cabin  while  the  community  sat  around 
on  rail  fences  and  mule-back  to  watch.  They  are  back 
in  1800  when  stricken  sinners  lay  in  windrows  under 
the  "power"  of  the  Kentucky  revival.  Like  men, 
like  results. 

Deserting  the  Mountains.  Economically  speaking, 
there  is  just  one  sensible  man  in  the  community.  At 
the  time  of  this  writing  he  is  just  preparing  to  move 
thirty  miles  to  town  and  put  his  family  to  work  in 


82  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

the  cotton-mill.  He  proposes  to  omit  for  them  the 
entire  evolution  of  the  American  people  from  1835 
to  1890  and  to  press  them  direct  from  the  pioneer 
into  the  industrial  stage.  The  physical,  social,  and 
moral  risk  is  apparent;  but  their  family  income  from 
the  beginning  will  be  more  than  he  could  think  of 
gaining  as  expert  tie  cutter  and  mountain  farmer. 

Missions  Upon  an  Inadequate  Basis.  Home  mis- 
sions as  represented  by  two  Christian  women  doing 
religious,  community,  and  school  work  may  convert 
individuals  and  even  somewhat  mitigate  the  social 
fragmentariness  and  spiritual  desolation  of  this  moun- 
tain community.  They  may  educate  the  children,  who 
are  by  no  means  degenerate,  to  leave  the  mountains, 
which  of  course  does  not  help  the  community  which 
is  left.  Of  constructive  social  results,  to  speak  truth, 
they  have  little  to  show  for  their  efforts.  The  frontier 
has  lasted  too  long  with  these  thirteen  families.  They 
are  not  socially  plastic.  They  cannot  farm  on  the 
mountain  and  achieve  a  decent  standard  of  living. 
Industry  must  either  come  to  them  or  they  go  to  in- 
dustry. For  the  present  their  salvation  is  in  the 
mill  towns.  And  what  a  salvation ! 

Undeveloped  Resources.  The  case  just  cited  is  an 
extreme  one,  intended  to  enforce  the  dependence  of 
satisfactory  religious  results  upon  a  sound  economic 
foundation.  After  the  surplus  population  is  removed, 
the  resources  of  the  mountains  should  be  developed 
to  the  full  so  as  to  sustain  adequately  those  who  re- 
main. There  are  types  of  agriculture  peculiarly  suited 


w 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      83 

to  such  regions ;  stock-raising,  dairying,  and  fruit  cul- 
ture. The  better  mission  schools  are  working  hard  to 
teach  the  new  generation  how  to  profit  by  these  re- 
sources. There  are  extensive  deposits  of  coal,  too,  un- 
derlying these  mountain  farms,  and  industry  is  fast 
coming  to  the  mountaineer  when  the  mountaineer  will, 
not  go  to  industry.  Between  industry  and  improved 
mountain  agriculture,  population  may  hope  to  get  ad- 
justed to  resources.  Meanwhile,  home  missions  as 
Christian  philanthropy  must  strive  to  equalize  oppor- 
tunity for  the  woodsman's  boy  as  for  the  Turk  or 
Hindu. 

The  Case  of  the  Negro.  Another  case  in  which  our 
adequate  program  will  be  very  inadequate  without 
the  further  painstaking  efforts  of  home  missions  is 
presented  by  the  eight  million  rural  Negroes  of  the 
United  States.  Hordes  of  them,  if  they  knew  such 
things  existed,  could  not  read  the  bulletins  through 
which  Uncle  Sam  would  teach  his  children  to  farm. 
Generally  they  have  been  left  outside  of  the  scope  of 
those  agencies  by  which  the  states  seek  to  quicken 
agriculture.  The  Negro's  schools  have  been  miserable, 
inadequate — fragmentary  in  time,  poorly  housed, 
poorly  taught.  Even  over  his  conspicuous  gains  in 
landownership,  the  economist  shakes  his  head,  remind- 
ing us  that  in  the  long  run  land  will  gravitate  into 
the  hands  of  those  who  can  use  it  best.  But  the 
Negro  knows  little  but  traditional,  land-robbing  farm 
methods.  In  common  with  all  tenants,  he  uses  insuf- 
ficient fertilizer.  His  typical  tenant  holding  is  too 


84  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

small  from  which  to  make  a  living  in  the  American 
sense.  Child  labor  seems  the  only  alternative  to  starv- 
ation for  his  family.  In  debt  to  his  landlord  for  a 
year's  living  before  his  crop  is  "made,"  his  margin 
of  opportunity  would  be  pitiably  narrow  even  if  his 
intelligence  were  greater.  In  many  sections  his  prog- 
ress is  discouraged  by  violence.  Sometimes  his  agri- 
cultural organizations  are  favored  by  his  neighbors 
so  long  as  they  make  him  a  better  producer;  nearly 
always  they  are  bitterly  resented  when  they  seek  to 
influence  labor  conditions  or  the  prices  of  agricultural 
products. 

A  Rural  Social  Settlement.  Rural  mission  schools 
for  Negroes  have  from  the  beginning  largely  sus- 
tained their  pupils  by  furnishing  them  with  the  op- 
portunity of  farm  or  domestic  labor  in  connection 
with  the  institution.  They  had  therefore  less  to  learn 
from  the  modern  social  redirection  of  education,  since 
they  were  already  teaching  so  largely  in  the  terms  of 
the  pupils'  immediate  environment.  For  them,  as  for 
home  missions  in  general,  the  new  order  consists 
largely  in  gathering  up  and  revaluing  their  social  by- 
products, and  then  in  setting  them  up  as  direct  social 
aims.  Thus  the  Joseph  Keasby  Brick  School  in  east- 
ern North  Carolina  had  operated  a  farm  of  1,029 
acres,  and  had  essentially  conducted  a  rural  social  set- 
tlement for  twenty  years;  had  graduated  generations 
of  tenants  into  farm  owners;  had  organized  and  in- 
structed farmers ;  had  sent  out  brilliant  young  men  as 
instructors  of  agriculture  or  the  industries,  till  it 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      85 

found  itself  in  the  midst  of  a  Negro  population  own- 
ing 100,000  acres  of  farm  land  in  three  contiguous 
counties  and  with  taxable  property  in  one  of  the 
three  worth  $1,250,000.  Yet  all  this  while  the  school 
had  cherished  the  delusion  that  its  chief  function  was 
to  prepare  students  for  college.  When  therefore  re- 
cently its  supporting  missionary  board  asked  it  to 
accept  explicitly  the  role  of  a  school  of  rural  life,  it 
somewhat  resented  the  suggestion.  Its  practise  was 
better  than  its  preaching.  Its  thinking  needed  redirec- 
tion though  its  doing  had  long  ago  turned  "home  to 
the  instant  need  of  things." 

Notable  Community  Service.  Three  years  ago  a 
large  Negro  school  in  Alabama,  whose  large  farm  had 
previously  been  an  ornamental  adjunct  rather  than  an 
integral  factor  in  education,  set  itself  directly  to  de- 
velop a  department  of  rural  community  service.  Its 
first  step  was  to  organize  a  Negro  farmers'  associa- 
tion for  its  county.  This  association  meets  in  the 
county  court-house  three  times  a  year;  has  two  hun- 
dred members  and  an  average  attendance  of  seventy- 
five.  Two  years  ago  it  established  a  Colored  Farm- 
ers' County  Fair,  which  last  year  gathered  2,000  ex- 
hibits and  awarded  nearly  a  hundred  different  prizes. 
The  school  conducts  an  annual  "school  in  the  field" — 
a  day  on  which  the  whole  countryside  gathers  to  its 
model  farm,  the  men  to  inspect  and  receive  instruc- 
tion in  new  agricultural  methods,  the  women  to  have 
demonstrations  in  home  nursing,  the  care  and  feeding 
of  infants,  cooking,  and  sewing.  Two  hundred  men 


86  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

and  seventy-five  women  now  profit  by  this  occasion. 
Fifty  of  them,  a  year  ago,  took  away  each  100  grains 
of  tested  seed-corn  and  competed  for  a  prize  Jersey 
pig  which  should  go  to  the  farmer  raising  the  largest 
yield  of  corn.  In  a  state  which  averages  less  than 
15  bushels,  David  Rutledge  raised  56  bushels  on  one 
acre  and  got  the  pig.  An  agricultural  prize  has  been 
established  for  students  of  the  institution  for  the 
greatest  profit  from  a  half  acre  of  land.  Nine  stu- 
dents have  prepared  the  land,  planned  the  crops,  tested 
the  seed,  and  are  now  competing  for  this  prize.  Ad- 
vanced students  in  sociology  have  been  studying  the 
inside  and  outside  of  farm  homes  in  order  to  make 
the  gains  of  better  farming  count  in  better  living. 

Cooperating  with  the  State.  The  college  has  laid 
hold  of  the  public  school  system,  too,  and  is  redirecting 
it  into  social  efficiency.  Thus  the  County  Teachers' 
Institute  is  annually  held  within  its  walls  and  con- 
ducted by  one  of  its  professors  under  state  authoriza- 
tion. In  connection  with  this  Institute  industrial  ex- 
hibits by  the  several  rural  schools  are  developed.  Two 
days  per  year  are  allowed  to  public  school-teachers 
for  observation  in  schools  other  than  their  own.  These 
are  utilized  by  the  college  to  offer  a  County  School  of 
Observation  in  which  suitable  methods  for  rural 
schools  are  discussed  and  demonstrated  by  its  model 
school.  A  teachers'  reading  circle  is  conducted  by 
its  extension  department.  Patrons  of  rural  schools 
are  being  organized  into  School  Improvement  Leagues 
and  the  educational  authorities  of  the  state  are  being 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY      87 

encouraged  to  take  a  more  active  interest  in  their 
welfare.  The  railway  system  on  which  the  college 
is  located  is  seeking  to  develop  a  more  diversified  type 
of  agriculture  along  its  line,  in  view  of  the  approach 
of  the  cotton  boll-weevil;  and,  along  with  the  state 
and  federal  government,  is  fighting  the  cattle  tick.  The 
college  is  being  used  by  all  these  agencies.  Its  suc- 
cessful alfalfa  culture  has  been  made  an  object-lesson 
to  the  entire  state  in  profitable  diversification ;  its  dip- 
ping vat  has  become  the  center  of  the  county  cam- 
paign for  tick  eradication. 

Large  Beginnings.  All  this  is  necessitated  by  an 
adequate  program  of  home  missions  for  the  rural  Ne- 
gro, because  for  him  hitherto  the  resources  of  the 
state  have  been  inadequately  supplied.  He  has  been 
so  poor  a  farmer  that  he  could  neither  maintain  family 
life  upon  a  decent  standard  of  living  nor  support  the 
community  factors  essential  to  rural  well-being.  But 
where  the  better  mission  schools  reach  out,  large  be- 
ginnings have  been  made.  No  more  eager  and  teach- 
able population  exists  in  America  than  the  Negro 
farmer,  when  once  he  is  adequately  acquainted  with 
the  best  possibilities  of  rural  life.  And  probably  no 
ministers  more  uniformly  make  it  their  business  to 
organize  and  teach  for  rural  betterment  than  some  of 
the  graduates  of  such  schools  as  have  been  described. 
The  author  receives  hundreds  of  reports  from  Negro 
churches  each  year  in  which  community  gains  in  cot- 
ton, peanuts,  or  sugar-cane  are  as  carefully  counted 
as  souls  saved.  Yet  there  are  left  unawakened,  inert 


88  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

millions.  Among  them  and  those  of  other  backward 
races  and  groups  in  the  open  country  lies  one  of  the 
longest,  most  stubborn,  most  patriotic  and  rewarding 
tasks  of  home  missions.  The  extracting  and  exploit- 
ing industries,  like  lumbering  and  mining,  project  their 
peculiar  communities  and  social  problems  into  rural 
conditions  and  constitute  special  tasks  for  home  mis- 
sions. Wherever  they  go,  mountain  and  marsh,  prairie 
and  piedmont,  coastal  plain  and  high  plateau,  each 
adds  its  touch  of  variety,  its  challenge  and  its  diffi- 
culty to  their  work. 

Who  Is  My  Neighbor?  Recent  studies  in  local  his- 
tory have  established  the  intimate  dependence  of  civ- 
ilization upon  these  physical  variations.  A  very  little 
ridge  of  hills  in  the  midst  of  a  plain,  a  very  narrow 
valley  huddled  between  mountains,  will  produce  radi- 
cal differences  in  population.  How  very  little  a  physi- 
cal difference  may  reenforce  other  factors  to  create 
strange  social  types  is  seen  within  twenty  miles  of 
New  York  City,  where  descendants  of  Indians,  Dutch, 
and  Negro  slaves  have  lived  for  a  century  on  the 
edge  of  the  highlands  as  a  peculiar  community,  ex- 
tremely backward  in  culture  and  utterly  unmoved 
by  the  mighty  pulsing  of  the  city's  life  so  near  them. 
In  the  most  fertile  and  highly  improved  prairie  states, 
the  thin  fringes  of  brush  along  the  streams  often 
shelter  generations  of  social  Ishmaelites.  The  richest 
valleys  often  look  up  to  impoverished  hill  towns,  lack- 
ing every  progressive  factor  of  rural  life.  Not  only 
in  the  city  are  there  proximity  of  wealth  and  poverty, 


ADEQUATE  PROGRAM  FOR  COUNTRY     89 

sharp  contrast  of  social  fortunes,  and  the  need  to  unite 
men  in  community  enthusiasms.  In  the  country,  as 
well,  many  a  Christian,  longing  for  a  larger  sphere 
of  service,  may  walk  in  his  garden  in  the  cool  of  the 
day  and  find  a  mission  field  no  farther  away  than  the 
hills  to  which  he  lifts  his  eyes. 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER 


Concern  for  the  City.  The  nation  has  watched  its 
own  marvelous  urban  growth  with  deep  searchings  of 
heart.  It  is  found  that  46  per  cent,  of  our  population 
now  lives  in  cities  and  we  are  wont  to  record  this 
fact  as  a  Problem  in  capital  letters.  The  gains  of 
the  country  for  the  last  decade  were  1 1  per  cent. ; 
of  the  city  35  per  cent.  Our  cities  now  number  2,405 
with  a  population  of  42,623,000  people,  and  the  city 
has  grown  faster  in  prestige  than  in  numbers.  Its 
psychological  sway  is  far  beyond  its  weight.  The 
country  thinks  in  terms  of  the  city  as  never  before. 
The  city  bears  acutely  upon  the  souls  of  all  the  people. 
The  country  is  in  a  mood  of  spiritual  dependence 
and  quickly  adopts  the  city  ways  and  conventionali- 
ties. 

Is  the  Country  Harmed?  The  assumption,  how- 
ever, that  urban  growth  is  necessarily  at  the  expense 
of  the  country  needs  to  be  sharply  challenged.  The 
growth  of  the  rural  districts  in  the  last  decade  is  close 
to  the  growth  in  total  population  of  long  settled  civili- 
zations like  that  of  Germany ;  it  nearly  equals  the  in- 
crease of  our  own  native  stock.  The  country  is  popu- 

93 


94  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

lous  enough,  or  rather  too  populous  in  spots,  already. 
Fewer  country  people  could  support  the  city  than 
at  present,  and  the  economic  balance  will  be  better 
when  more  have  gone  from  the  country.  One  farm 
laborer  can  produce  enough  to  feed  seven  or  eight  peo- 
ple at  present,  and  under  ideal  conditions  of  American 
agriculture  ought  to  be  able  to  feed  sixteen.  The 
chances  are  that,  with  normal  development,  the  city 
will  grow  even  more  rapidly  than  in  the  past.  What 
it  has  been  getting,  up  to  now,  is  surplus  population, 
especially  that  from  foreign  immigration.  The  British 
Agricultural  Board  treats  the  English  urban  movement 
as  normal,  and  complains  only  of  the  supplementary 
drain  of  population  overseas. 

Reason  for  the  City.  The  city  is  inevitable.  It  is 
the  creation  of  the  country  and  exists  for  the  sake  of 
the  country.  When  country  population  increases  nor- 
mally and  produces  with  the  tools  and  the  science  of 
modern  civilization,  it  needs  vast  city  populations  to 
transport,  transform,  and  exchange  its  surplus.  Spe- 
cifically, the  city  is  the  product  of  the  machine;  it  is 
the  greatest  machine-made  product.  One  may  con- 
dense the  history  of  its  evolution  as  follows :  Steam 
substituted  the  machine  for  the  hand  tool,  and  the 
machine  necessitated  the  factory,  which  is  simply  a 
battery  of  tools  moved  by  common  power.  Many  ma- 
chines in  one  place  require  many  people  to  run  them. 
These  many  people  living  and  working  together  are 
a  city. 

Where  Must  the  City  Be?     The  location  of  cities  is 


TOTAL 


49,348,683 


TOTAL     ^dL^^i  2,623. 383 

Circles  sAow  relative  size  of  totals 

Based  on  Census  of  /9/O 

RURAL  AXU   URBAN    POPULATION 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER  95 

typically  a  reflection  of  the  concentration  of  industry. 
Where  there  is  material  to  be  manufactured,  power 
to  drive  machines,  and  men  to  consume  goods,  the 
cities  spring  up  in  groups.  Factory  production  seeks 
proximity  of  raw  material,  water-power  or  fuel,  and 
markets.  The  result  is  not  an  even  distribution  of 
urban  population,  but  its  concentration  where  condi- 
tions have  located  industry.  The  varying  accessibility 
of  labor  and  the  tendency  of  industries  to  mass  to- 
gether have  created  in  America  very  interesting  ex- 
tremes of  concentration.  Thus  40  per  cent,  of  all  the 
gloves  manufactured  in  the  United  States  are  made 
in  a  small  city  *  of  21,000  people;  or,  more  specifically, 
of  381  glove  factories  in  the  United  States  (Census 
of  1900)  243  are  in  New  York  State,  166  in  Fulton 
County,  150  being  in  the  adjoining  municipalities  of 
Gloversville  and  Johnstown.  2  The  iron  industry  has 
two  conspicuous  centers;  and  the  extreme  concentra- 
tion of  the  knit  goods  industry,  of  the  manufacture  of 
collars  and  cuffs,  boots  and  shoes,  silk,  glass,  and  pot- 
tery is  familiar.  Each  of  these  industries  has  created 
a  train  of  cities.  While  industry  has  a  general  west- 
ward movement,  by  far  its  largest  bulk  and  the  great- 
est percentage  of  its  workers  lie  in  the  n  northeastern 
states  constituting  less  than  one  fifth  of  our  area  and 
bounded  by  a  line  run  from  Philadelphia  to  St.  Louis 
and  thence  to  St.  Paul.  And  since  the  city  is  the  re- 
flection of  industry  it  is  natural  to  find  in  this  area 

'Gloversville,  N.  Y. 

*  Brighatn,  Commercial  Geography,  209. 


96  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

32  out  of  our  50  cities  of  more  than  100,000  popu- 
lation each. 

The  Great  Cities.  The  largest  cities  of  any  nation 
have  outgrown  the  forces  which  originally  located 
them  about  single  industries  or  limited  markets. 
Favored  by  the  law  that  "to  him  that  hath  shall  be 
given"  they  have  become  vast  centers  of  production, 
gathered  empires  of  dependent  territory  around  them, 
focused  upon  themselves  the  lines  of  transportation, 
become  the  world  markets  and  the  radiant  points  of 
civilization.  They  are  among  the  great  social  and 
spiritual  achievements  of  our  day. 

The  Shame  of  the  City.  A  just  social  evaluation  of 
the  city  requires  the  balancing  of  its  human  losses 
and  human  gains.  Its  shame  has  been  often  exploited 
— crowding,  anonymousness,  heedlessness  of  the  in- 
dividual as  a  person.  While  the  machinery  of  the  city 
follows  the  single  life  closely,  recording  name  and  birth 
and  death,  and  how  much  it  costs  one  either  to  live  or 
to  die,  yet  it  is  as  names  rather  than  as  immortal  souls 
that  the  city  regards  its  children.  The  difficulty  of 
acquiring  a  home  in  the  physical  sense  puts  great  moral 
overstrain  on  family  life.  The  immensely  diverse  and 
conflicting  elements  of  the  city  make  civic  unity  diffi- 
cult The  city  is  a  synonym  for  bad  government, 
which  means  primarily  unsuitable  government,  one 
not  as  yet  properly  adapted  to  the  new  social 
situation.  It  is  inevitably  the  lair  of  commercialized 
vices.  Machine-like  organization  devised  to  serve  the 
great  needs  of  civilization  is  prostituted  to  serve  the 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER          97 

forces  which  degrade  and  damn.  Temptation  is  sys- 
tematized and  made  profitable. 

The  Glory  of  the  City.  But  its  worst  shame  must 
not  blind  us  to  the  city's  glory.  In  the  city  ideals 
dominate  environment.  It  may  become  what  it  will. 
Man  made  it,  but,  instead  of  calling  it  therefore  arti- 
ficial, reverence  ought  to  see  in  it  the  completest  and 
most  natural  utterances  of  the  divine  in  him.  It  has 
greater  moral  resources  than  the  country  and  it  handles 
them  better.  It  is  making  much  more  rapid  social 
progress.  It  points  the  way  in  most  of  the  hopeful 
programs  of  social  betterment. 

Health.  The  city  has  reduced  infant  mortality  to 
the  lowest  rate  ever  achieved.  It  is  preventing  as 
never  before  the  tremendous  waste  of  being  born  only 
to  die.  The  body  is  better  safeguarded  in  the  city 
than  in  the  country.  Eyes,  teeth,  and  tonsils  are  cared 
for  in  the  public  school.  There  are  better  general 
provisions  for  the  care  of  sickness — less  pain  in  sick- 
ness and  far  better  social  measures  to  prevent  sick- 
ness. Even  tuberculosis  is  shown  to  be  less  prevalent 
among  city  children  in  the  United  States  than  in  the 
country.  Repeated  physical  tests  between  country- 
bred  and  city-bred  students  in  university  gymnasiums 
have  shown  the  average  city  boy  to  be  freer  from 
physical  malformations  and  more  normally  developed. 

Sanitation.  City  streets  are  cleaner  than  barn- 
yards, and  city  tenements  than  too  many  rural  kitchen 
yards.  The  city  man  is  cleaner  in  his  personal  habits 
than  is  the  American  farmer.  The  farmer  consumes 


98  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

the  milk  which  the  city  will  not  buy.  He  has  not 
learned  that  it  is  no  cleaner  than  the  flies  which  light 
upon  his  utensils;  nor  that  the  "cowey  taste"  which 
the  city  visitor  misses  in  his  pasteurized  milk  is  simply 
the  contribution  from  the  manure  pile.  City  food  is 
both  cleaner,  cheaper,  and  more  varied  than  country 
food.  The  air  of  city  gathering-places,  through  super- 
vised ventilation,  is  purer  than  that  of  the  country's, 
where,  as  Dr.  North  points  out,  the  advantage  of 
working  all  day  in  the  open  air  is  more  than  offset 
by  the  habit  of  sleeping  all  night  in  a  tightly  closed 
room  with  one's  head  under  the  bedclothes.  While 
American  health  statistics  from  the  registration  area 
(17  states)  indicate  that  the  country  is  somewhat 
healthier  than  the  city,  it  must  be  remembered,  for 
example,  that  the  whole  hookworm  belt  is  outside  of 
this  area.  It  is  doubtful  whether  a  survey  covering 
health  conditions  in  the  entire  nation  would  prove 
the  country  to  be  generally  more  healthy.  At  any 
rate,  improvement  is  infinitely  easier  in  the  city  than 
in  the  country  owing  to  better  agencies  of  public  con- 
trol in  sanitation. 

Conditions  of  Work.  At  present  there  are  greater 
opportunities  for  work,  and  work  to  utilize  more  men 
at  fitting  tasks  for  city  men  than  in  the  country. 
There  is  more  leisure  as  well  as  more  work.  The 
city  offers  the  shortest  working  day  ever  afforded  to 
humanity. 

Social  and  Educational  Advantages.  There  is  also 
wider  fellowship;  for  while  neighborliness  is  scarce, 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER  99 

within  class  lines  both  at  work  and  at  play  organiza- 
tion is  keen.  In  the  city  the  lowliest  may  belong  to 
something.  From  the  organization  of  the  Christian 
Church  down,  the  city  has  been  the  home  of  group 
loyalties  and  of  democratic  movements.  The  city  is 
intellectually  alert  as  compared  with  the  country. 
Everybody  reads  the  daily  paper;  everybody  discusses 
the  issues  of  the  day;  living  in  a  city  is  in  itself  an 
education.  It  is  an  education  in  esthetic  sensibility. 
The  store  windows,  public  buildings,  amusement- 
places — the  stage — and  even  dress  tend  to  universalize 
taste.  The  city  has  schools  for  all  its  children,  which 
is  far  from  true  of  the  country  at  large.  They  are 
none  too  good,  but  they  are  the  best  which  were  ever 
afforded  to  the  people  in  general  and  their  results  are 
immeasurably  significant. 

Life  Richer  and  More  Satisfying.  There  are  more 
varied  satisfactions  in  the  city.  In  the  country  the 
range  of  harmonious  and  helpful  things  is  limited, 
and  it  is  not  great  enough  to  fill  the  most  forceful  and 
adventurous  lives.  The  city  affords  many  avenues 
of  rewarding  interest  to  one  who  is  not  vicious  but 
who  is  merely  eager  and  zestful.  Goodness  is  better 
organized  and  more  efficiently  directed  in  the  city  than 
in  the  country;  it  also  touches  life  at  more  points. 
City  life  is  dynamic.  Its  moral  mood  is  that  of 
achievement.  Religion  is  less  inclined  to  deal  in  nega- 
tions. 

The  City  at  Its  Best.    All  told,  the  city  is  democ- 


ioo  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

racy's  finest  achievement  for  the  largest  numbers  of 
men.  Any  of  its  moods  justify  the  poet: 

"Earth  hath  not  anything  to  show  more  fair; 
Dull  would  he  be  of  soul  who  could  pass  by  a  sight  so  touch- 
ing in  its  majesty." 

To  understand  the  city  at  its  best  one  needs  to  ex- 
plore the  city  child's  memories.  One  whose  earliest 
experiences  were  those  of  a  white  cottage  standing 
amid  green  fields,  whose  adventures  were  of  the  swim- 
ming-hole, and  whose  dignitary  was  the  country  dea- 
con, almost  certainly  fails  to  understand  the  satis- 
faction one  may  find  in  idealizing  the  good  old  win- 
dowless  bedroom,  the  good  old  city  pavement,  the 
good  old  public  bath,  the  policeman,  the  shops,  and 
the  public  school;  yet  all  these  may  be  as  sound  and 
sacred  material  for  human  reverence  as  the  other. 

The  Citizen.  But  the  finest  achievement  of  the  city 
is  socialized  character,  and  this  may  be  found  best  ex- 
hibited in  industrial  masses.  Owning  no  home,  and 
never  expecting  to  own  one;  with  little  of  personal 
wealth,  laboring  from  day  to  day  with  little  personal 
reserve  against  the  future,  millions  of  human  beings 
live  on  worthily,  strong  in  the  possession  of  collective 
responsibility  and  wealth,  inhabiting  the  whole  city 
as  their  home  and  owning  it  in  the  broader  sense  of 
enjoying  its  heaped-up  common  possessions.  They 
do  not  miss  what  they  have  never  had,  and  they  have 
both  human  satisfactions  and  moral  excellencies  of 
a  new  and  permanent  sort.  This  thoroughgoing  ur- 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER         101 

banized  humanity  is  the  most  promising  material  of 
the  city  church. 

New  Religious  Conditions.  Religion  in  the  city  is 
in  the  same  condition  with  political  and  social  institu- 
tions. Most  of  their  forms  and  too  much  of  their 
spirit  are  simply  survivals  from  the  farmer  economy, 
not  at  all  adapted  to  urban  conditions.  Thus  the 
older  home  missionary  program  is  totally  inadequate 
to  the  modern  city.  The  mission  church  of  the  older 
commercial  city  was  fairly  successful  because  it  dealt 
with  a  largely  static  population — clerks  and  dependents 
who  were  devoid  of  class  resentment.  Now  however 
it  has  to  deal  with  an  acutely  class-conscious  industrial 
population  with  which  it  almost  totally  fails.  Indus- 
trial workers  have  personally  felt  the  contrast  of 
wealth  and  poverty  which  the  city  presents  and  have 
consequently  thought  effectively  about  them.  They 
have  asked  the  question  of  the  fundamental  justice  of 
existing  conditions  and  have  acquired  a  highly  critical 
attitude  for  institutions  which  tend  to  restrain  men 
without  at  the  same  time  urgently  concerning  them- 
selves with  the  rectifying  of  conditions. 

The  Fortunes  of  the  Churches.  The  mobility  of 
population  in  cities,  rapid  changes  within  given  areas, 
and  the  irresponsibility  of  the  transient  tenant  class 
tend  to  make  the  lot  of  the  smaller  city  church  always 
precarious.  Almost  any  moment  its  substantial  peo- 
ple may  have  to  move  away  in  the  face  of  an  inun- 
dating flood  of  aliens.  Expansion  of  manufacturing 
or  business,  with  any  of  the  more  radical  movements 


102  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

of  populations,  may  reduce  to  poverty  or  exterminate 
even  the  strongest  city  church.  Probably  no  American 
city  of  over  100,000  will  fail  to  show  ancient  and 
venerable  houses  of  worship  turned  into  storage  ware- 
houses or  vaudeville  theaters. 

Urban  Missionary  Strategy.  The  subjection  of  re- 
ligious institutions  in  the  city  to  sudden  attack  and 
at  almost  any  point,  by  changes  in  population,  compels 
a  missionary  strategy  which  views  the  total  denomina- 
tional prospects  of  a  given  city  as  a  single  problem. 
To  make  headway  a  denominational  group  must  or- 
ganize and  view  all  church  problems  as  home  mission- 
ary problems.  Its  several  congregations  cannot  sur- 
vive if  they  are  parochially  selfish,  each  tending  to  go 
its  own  way.  Land  and  buildings  cost  so  much  in  the 
city  that  only  the  most  exceptional  church  can  get 
along  without  denominational  aid  at  some  time  or  an- 
other. Denominational  city  missionary  organizations 
which  include  all  the  congregations  of  a  city  and  which 
view  all  their  problems  as  missionary  problems  are 
characteristic  of  our  present  religious  policy.  Again 
the  city  is  too  difficult  for  Christian  conquest  by  the 
denominations  acting  separately.  More  and  more  it 
compels  interdenominational  strategy  and  organiza- 
tion. The  Church  as  a  whole  must  get  the  sense  of 
the  city  as  a  whole  and  must  collectively  direct  its 
forces  to  the  city's  redemption. 

Types  of  Churches.  The  religious  strategy  of  the 
modern  city,  with  its  suburbs  and  "satellite"  cities, 
necessitates  a  wide  range  of  religious  institutions 


LABOR  TEMPLE 

Located  at  Fourteenth  Street  and  Second  Avenue.  Xcw  York  City.  There  are 
600,000  people  south  of  Fourteenth  Street  and  east  of  the  Bowery.  Attendance  at  Labor 
Temple,  in  igij,  250,000 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER        103 

matching  the  city's  varied  needs.  Even  in  the  heart 
of  the  city  the  majority  of  churches  will  be  of  the 
familiar  "family"  type.  American  life  fortunately 
is  not  so  stratified  but  that  its  large  middle  class 
reaches  both  up  and  down  and  combines  in  its  char- 
acteristic churches  the  capitalistic,  professional,  com- 
mercial, and  industrial  populations.  As  many  sur- 
veys have  shown,  Protestantism  is  not  literally  out  of 
touch  with  "labor."  In  typical  cities  as  high  as  75 
per  cent,  of  Protestant  church  population  are  wage- 
earners,  either  as  clerks  or  industrial  workers.  Given 
adequate  resources  the  extension  of  "family"  churches 
to  match  the  growth  of  cities  in  their  residential  dis- 
tricts is  one  of  the  most  profitable  forms  of  home  mis- 
sions. There  will  be  more  new  churches  of  this 
type  than  of  any  other;  and  large  investments  in 
them  will  be  soonest  justified.  A  growing  city  in 
the  Middle  West,  for  example,  is  located  in  the  bend 
of  a  river.  Across  the  river  on  two  sides  are  massed 
its  industries  and  the  lowest  grade  of  laboring  popu- 
lation. On  the  other  two  sides  a  middle-class  popu- 
lation, chiefly  American,  has  expanded  in  an  almost 
continuous  band  about  two  blocks  wide  per  year,  for 
the  last  decade.  In  these  successive  rims  of  city 
growth  a  single  denomination  has  located  some  ten 
churches,  most  of  which  have  been  successful  beyond 
the  average.  Other  denominations  have  secured  like 
results.  In  a  few  cases  rival  churches  have  interfered 
with  one  another,  but  on  the  whole  the  process  has 
been  effective  and  orderly. 


104  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Future  Development.  With  the  prospective  growth 
of  our  more  than  2,000  cities  in  the  next  decade,  mis- 
sionary forces  face  the  necessity  of  furnishing  several 
thousands  of  such  typical  churches.  To  be  sure,  their 
constituency  is  largely  not  home-owning,  and  they 
suffer  from  the  extreme  mobility  of  urban  popula- 
tions, but  there  is  a  larger  permanent  nucleus  than 
in  any  other  type  of  city  church  and  with  reasonably 
strategic  location  and  forceful  leadership  such 
churches  ought  to  and  do  succeed.  They  must  of 
course  be  housed  and  equipped  in  general  harmony 
with  the  type  of  community  which  surrounds  them. 
Their  parish  methods  need  not  be  radically  revolu- 
tionized, but  they  must  live  ever  in  the  sense  of  their 
greater  field — the  entire  city. 

"Down-town"  Churches.  Specialized  types  of 
churches  are  also  found  in  most  American  cities.  For 
example  almost  every  population  of  100,000  people 
can  support  at  least  one  "down-town"  church,  or- 
ganized around  a  commanding  pulpit  and  furnishing 
a  forum  for  inspirational  messages  to  the  entire  city. 
Such  churches  frequently  wield  great  civic  power,  as 
well  as  gather  immense  audiences  of  more  or  less 
transient  people. 

The  Institutional  Church.  This  type  is  an  attempt 
to  serve  the  needs  of  communities  deficient  in  home 
life  by  reason  of  poverty,  or  of  new  or  unplaced  people 
living  in  boarding-houses.  It  performs  a  great  variety 
of  functions,  furnishing  amusement  and  recreation, 
education,  medical  care  and  nursing,  employment  and 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER        105 

business  advice,  to  its  constituency.  It  generally  suc- 
ceeds chiefly  in  serving  young  people  who  are  rising 
out  of  the  class  in  which  they  were  born,  or  during 
their  transition  from  country  to  city.  The  actual  com- 
munity life  about  the  institutional  church  frequently 
does  not  progress,  but  is  rather  continually  depleted  by 
the  removal  of  its  best  material  through  the  successful 
agency  of  the  church,  the  masses  remaining  no  higher 
than  they  were.  Frequently  when  civic  agencies  of 
social  betterment  are  perfected  the  institutional  church 
is  found  to  be  no  longer  necessary.  But  where  it  is 
needed  and  when  it  is  needed  it  is  a  fundamental  form 
of  Christian  service. 

Churches  for  Foreign-speaking  People.  Usually 
under  native  pastors,  these  furnish  another  character- 
istic urban  type.  Our  more  recent  aliens  are  generally 
non-Protestant  and  not  easily  accessible  to  missionary 
organizations.  When  Protestant,  however,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Welsh,  German,  and  other  northern  Eu- 
ropean peoples,  the  church  organized  along  the  line 
of  the  common  language  group  is  a  suitable  and  often 
effective  one.  On  the  other  hand  it  should  be  re- 
membered that  the  gospel  in  one's  native  tongue  is  not 
the  same  as  the  gospel  preached  effectively  under  city 
conditions.  Many  of  these  churches  simply  bring  the 
rural  traditions  of  Europe,  which  are  no  more  suitable 
to  the  modern  city  than  the  rural  traditions  of  Amer- 
ica. The  children  rapidly  Americanize  and  the  charm 
of  the  gospel  in  the  native  tongue  wears  away.  The 
foreign-speaking  church  peculiarly  needs  social  redi- 


io6  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

rection.  It  may  then  hold  its  young  people  and  de- 
velop normally  into  self-support  as  an  American 
church,  or  it  may  become  extinct  after  performing  its 
temporary  service  to  an  alien  group  in  transition. 

The  Social  Settlement.  Extreme  diversity  of  class, 
creed,  and  race  under  city  conditions  frequently  makes 
the  sectarian  church  simply  an  agent  of  further  divi- 
sion in  the  community.  It  cannot  therefore  do  the 
fundamental  social  work  of  organizing  a  neighbor- 
hood spirit.  The  creation  of  such  spirit  and  its  devel- 
opment are  more  easily  served  by  the  social  settle- 
ment, which  may  be  ardently  Christian  in  spirit  but 
not  ecclesiastical  in  form.  The  social  settlement 
brings  diverse  people  together,  finds  for  them  com- 
mon ties,  gets  them  to  cooperate  and  therefore  to 
respect  and  like  one  another;  helps  them  to  idealize 
their  common  life  and  in  general  establishes  the  moral 
foundations  of  constructive  social  progress.  In  rare 
cases  a  church  manages  to  do  all  this  when  it  has  a 
pastor  who  is  large  enough  to  tower  above  the  insti- 
tution which  supports  him,  and  when  a  church  is 
large  enough  to  allow  him  to  be  a  community  man 
rather  than  an  ecclesiastic.  There  are  splendid  ex- 
amples of  such  men  who  have  grown  up  with  urban 
communities,  have  overcome  their  prejudices,  incar- 
nated their  ideals,  and  subordinated  the  institutional 
life  of  the  church  to  the  functions  of  social  leader- 
ship. But  the  man  and  the  church  that  can  do  this 
are  rare. 

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THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER         107 

best  social  progress  in  the  modern  city  has  been 
wrought  through  the  civic  activities  of  Christian  men 
apart  from  the  direct  activities  of  organized  churches. 
This  is  probably  to  be  a  permanent  condition,  and  it 
is  not  necessarily  derogatory  to  the  Church.  Even  if 
the  Church  were  less  sectarian  it  could  not  match  the 
extreme  diversity  of  city  population.  Social  problems 
are  largely  problems  of  technique  involving  expert 
knowledge  and  highly  specialized  talent.  The  Church 
is  less  able  to  furnish  these  qualities  because  it  in- 
cludes all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Many  social 
services  may  be  better  performed  by  more  limited  vol- 
untary organizations.  City  government  supported  by 
the  taxation  of  the  entire  people  is  properly  responsi- 
ble for  the  larger  social  environment  of  its  people. 
Through  government,  Christian  ideals  and  Christian 
conscience  can  most  fundamentally  affect  the  condi- 
tions of  urban  life.  Through  politics  the  Christian 
man  can  approach  the  entire  city  as  his  field  of  service 
and  touch  its  various  human  problems,  not  indeed  with 
the  old  intimate  personal  touch,  but  in  far-reaching 
working  alliance  of  the  group-leaders  of  its  diverse 
classes  and  races,  in  a  broad  and  effective  way. 

The  Unappreciated  Church.  On  the  other  hand, 
just  because  most  social  reforms  can  be  secured  and 
financed  by  the  state,  the  free  Church,  which  can  exist 
only  through  the  love  and  gifts  of  its  adherents,  has 
a  better  right  to  both  of  these  than  some  agencies 
which  have  come  between  it  and  the  state.  In  this 
respect  the  Church  is  being  called  back  into  its  own. 


io8  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

There  is  new  warmth  of  feeling  between  social  work- 
ers and  organized  Christianity  evidenced  by  the  large 
recent  stress  upon  the  Church  in  social  life  in  the 
teaching  of  the  schools  of  philanthropy.  The  direct 
social  activity  of  the  Church  will  surely  increase  rap- 
idly in  the  next  decade ;  and  home  missions  and  social 
service  will  come  better  to  understand  one  another  in 
the  modern  city.  Much  of  the  enthusiasm  and  many 
of  the  Christian  efforts  which  have  been  drafted  off 
into  social  service  channels  outside  of  the  Church 
had  far  better  return  and  help  convert  the  mind  and 
perfect  the  machinery  of  the  Church  for  this  task. 
Division  of  Labor.  The  Church  need  not  feel  be- 
littled by  any  discovery  of  permanent  limitations  upon 
its  direct  usefulness  in  social  service.  Whenever  any 
other  agency  can  really  do  a  thing  better  than  the 
Church  can  it  should  be  allowed  to  do  it.  Many  pre- 
cise social  tasks  will  probably  remain  too  complicated 
for  direct  performance  by  church  machinery.  The 
Church's  clue  is,  first  of  all,  many-sided  service,  with  a 
variety  of  typical  organizations ;  secondly,  timely  serv- 
ice performed  in  advance  of  the  arousing  of  civic 
conscience  and  the  perfecting  of  civic  machinery;  and, 
finally,  the  permanent  service  of  furnishing  vision  and 
religious  inspiration  deeper  than  any  social  knowl- 
edge. The  Church  need  have  no  pessimism  over  its 
present  situation.  Its  urban  growth  has  exceeded 
that  of  the  population.  It  is  not  out  of  touch  with 
the  profoundest  of  urban  problems,  but  is  rather  serv- 
ing them  by  a  variety  of  ministrations.  The  city  is 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER         109 

the  best  thing  which  God  has  yet  achieved  through 
man,  and  its  better  fortunes  for  all  the  future  are 
bound  up  with  the  agency  which  can  interpret  its 
life  and  transfigure  its  work. 

The  Stranger.  Through  the  Church  the  city  ought 
to  be  a  place  where  strangers  meet  and  make  friends. 
But  this  is  doubly  difficult  under  American  conditions. 
America  is  not  settled  in  the  sense  of  the  older  world. 
It  has  always  contained  an  unexampled  number  of 
people  new  to  their  present  environments.  The  native 
stock  is  hardly  more  at  home  than  the  foreign-born. 
The  West,  wherever  it  has  been,  has  always  been  full 
of  strangers  and  now  there  is  the  vast  cityward  move- 
ment. The  cost  of  immigration  includes  the  pain  of 
loneliness,  the  temporary  loss  of  social  position  and 
esteem,  the  risk  of  not-yet-established  talent  invested 
in  new  fields,  and  deep  breaches  in  personal  relations 
and  neighborliness.  Leakage  from  its  ranks  through 
immigration  has  been  the  chief  numerical  loss  of  the 
American  Church.  The  church-member  of  the  East 
too  often  has  become  the  worldling  of  the  West.  The 
country  deacon  moves  to  the  city  and  meets  unex- 
pected barriers  of  social  stratification  in  his  own  com- 
munion. There  will  be  three  or  four  years  of  lost 
time  before  he  gets  into  most  effective  working  rela- 
tions with  his  Church  in  a  new  place,  if  indeed  his 
children  ever  survive  the  shock  of  changed  environ- 
ment. 

The  Foreigner.     Of  course  the  most  difficult  strang- 


I  io  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

er  is  the  stranger  from  other  shores.1  There  are  now 
thirteen  and  a  half  million  of  foreign-born  people  in 
the  United  States,  this  being  14  per  cent,  of  the  total 
population.  They  constitute  over  one  fourth  of  the 
population  in  the  New  England  and  Middle  Atlantic 
States.  Adding  those  one  or  both  of  whose  parents 
are  foreign-born  gives  a  total  of  35  per  cent,  of  our 
population  as  belonging  to  foreign  stock  in  blood  and 
culture.  Foreigners  came  to  America  in  the  decade 
preceding  1910  to  the  number  of  eight  and  a  half  mil- 
lion. Three  and  a  quarter  million,  however,  went  back 
home  again,  thus  illustrating  a  newly  acquired  mo- 
bility in  industrial  populations,  and  leaving  a  net  in- 
crease for  the  decade  of  five  and  a  quarter  million. 
The  Geography  of  Immigration.  Three  fifths  of  all 
who  came  remained  in  the  New  England  and  Middle 
Atlantic  States,  which  we  have  already  identified  as 
preeminently  the  industrial  and  urban  section  of  our 
nation.  Of  the  foreign-born  72  per  cent,  dwell  in 
cities ;  of  the  total  population  but  46  per  cent.  While 
this  absolute  massing  of  urban  millions  in  the  North- 
east constitutes  the  most  extensive  problem  of  the 
stranger,  yet  in  proportion  to  population  the  most 
acute  situation  is  in  the  mountain  and  coast  states  of 
the  Northwest.  Here  naturally  immigration  is  more 
largely  rural  and  just  for  that  reason  more  difficult 

1  Since  the  immigrant  has  recently  been  the  subject  of  inten- 
sive mission  study,  this  book  will  deal  only  summarily  with  the 
background  of  facts  which  illuminate  his  home  missionary 
problem. 


MILL  ION  S 

12       34       'J6789     1O 


182 1-30 


1831-40 


1841-50 


1851-60 


1861-70 


1871-80 


1881-90 


1891-00 


1901-10 


1821-30 


1831-40 


1841-50 


1851-60 


1861-70 


1871-80 


1881-90 


189100 


1901- 1 0 


Based  on  sf/umal  Reports  of 
Commissioner -General  ofj/nmi<£raiion 

TOTAL  IMMIGRATION   BY   DECADES 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER        in 

to  assimilate.  Here  must  home  missions  continue 
many  of  their  pioneer  forms  to  meet  a  typically  social ' 
problem.  Nothing  could  better  demonstrate  the  fal- 
lacy of  the  expectation  that  country  life  as  such  will 
solve  social  problems  than  the  fact  that  the  rural 
Pennsylvania  Germans,  whose  ancestors  came  over 
to  America  in  colonial  times,  are  as  a  group  less 
American  in  ideals  and  ways  than  the  Germans  who 
came  chiefly  to  the  cities  in  1846.  Nowhere  do  an 
alien  tongue,  creed,  and  social  order  so  stubbornly  en- 
trench themselves  as  in  rural  colonies.  The  natural 
conservatism  of  country  life  vies  with  clannishness  to 
prevent  change.  The  extremest  case  of  all  is  that  of 
the  Mexican  population  of  the  Southwest,  whose  oc- 
cupancy of  their  territory  antedates  our  oldest  Eng- 
lish-speaking colonies  and  whose  disinclination  to  be- 
come assimilated  is  the  habit  of  three  hundred  years. 
This  stubborn  habit  of  clannishness  must  be  prevented 
in  the  aliens  of  the  newer  West. 

Social  and  Moral  Factors.  Everywhere  the  alien 
flood  comes  largely  from  rural  homes.  Its  character- 
istics in  the  American  city  are  not  only  those  of  a 
population  moving  from  one  land  to  another,  but  from 
one  social  environment:  to  another.  They  are  new 
to  the  city  as  well  as  to  the  nation,  being  largely  a 
peasant  population  coming  from  the  open  country  and 
undergoing  the  new  stress  of  industrialization.  In 
short,  they  are  suffering  the  extreme  experience  of 
change  in  all  directions  at  once.  Necessarily  then  the 
percentage  of  individual  incapacity  to  meet  this  dif- 


H2  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

ficult  test  will  be  large.  The  immigrant's  almost  uni- 
versal expectation  of  larger  advantage  than  is  destined 
to  be  realized  in  the  new  world  gives  a  pathetic  side 
to  the  whole  problem.  His  material  returns  for  his 
labor  will  not  be  so  great  as  the  stranger  imagines, 
nor  will  his  finer  hopes  have  full  realization.  At  the 
same  time  the  coming  of  vast  bodies  of  human  beings 
cherishing  strong  and  definite  idealistic  expectations 
certainly  adds  to  the  moral  resources  of  the  nation. 
We  import  energy  and  faith  when  we  receive  the 
stranger  within  our  gates. 

The  Newer  Immigration.  Previous  to  about  1882 
most  of  our  immigrant  population  had  come  from 
Northern  and  Western  Europe,  from  lands  which  were 
racially  allied  to  ours  and  which  had  experienced  paral- 
lel developments  in  modern  democracy  and  civilization. 
Suddenly  since  that  time  their  great  bulk  has  come 
largely  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  Now 
scarcely  one  fifth  come  from  the  Protestant  and  fully 
modernized  lands  whose  civilization  is  likest  ours, 
while  over  two  thirds  come  from  countries  which  bor- 
der on  Asia  or  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  We  now  deal 
not  merely  with  the  stranger,  but  such  a  stranger,  who 
has  grown  up  with  our  cities  until  they  are  largely  the 
human  reflection  of  his  problems  and  struggles.  They 
come  from  the  lands  of  infinite  local  variation,  of 
many  dialects,  of  extreme  clannishness,  of  social  dis- 
integration. Every  human  variety  may  be  found  in 
all  our  greater  cities  living  largely  in  clannish  com- 
munities which  reproduce  as  far  as  possible  charac- 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER        113 

teristics  of  the  old  home.  Our  greatest  city — New 
York — is  particularly  the  city  of  the  stranger,  and 
gets  its  unique  character  and  interest  from  being  the 
gateway  of  the  continent 

Give  and  Take.  Home  missionary  interest  is  con- 
cerned primarily  with  the  social  give  and  take  of  the 
immigration  process.  It  wishes  to  understand  the 
interaction  of  the  nation  and  its  new  peoples,  in  whom 
it  is  equally  interested.  Its  knowledge  of  sociology 
leads  it  to  expect  that  such  a  mingling  of  elements  is 
bound  to  bring  vigorous  and  rapid  social  change, 
whether  in  the  direction  of  progress  or  not.  Home 
missions  are  the  attempt  of  religion  to  turn  the  immi- 
grant tide  into  channels  of  progress.  As  a  concrete 
process  the  give  and  take  of  immigration  exhibits  six 
fundamental  phases: 

i.  Dislocation.  To  find  oneself  a  stranger  in  a 
new  place  is  to  be  filled  with  bewilderment  and  to  ex- 
perience strain.  The  new  world  challenges  the  alien. 
It  is  an  economic  challenge.  Can  he  find  a  job  and 
make  a  living,  especially  one  which  will  enable  him 
to  send  for  his  family  and  establish  them  upon  the 
American  standard  of  living?  It  is  a  political  chal- 
lenge. Can  he  adjust  himself  to  American  institu- 
tions, escaping  exploitation  by  the  political  boss  and 
arriving  at  responsible  citizenship?  It  is  a  moral 
challenge.  Foundations  of  customary  morality  are 
rooted  in  the  habitual  life  of  the  group  to  which  one 
belongs.  The  group  being  broken  and  the  sanctions 
of  morals  shaken  by  his  transfer  to  a  new  world,  can 


II4  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

the  alien  discover  and  rebuild  character  upon  new 
sanctions?  The  Hebrew  race  for  example  has  been 
traditionally  chaste.  One  of  the  great  moral  victories 
of  the  Hebrew  prophets  of  the  eighth  century  before 
Christ  was  the  stamping  out  of  religious  prostitution. 
It  is  perhaps  the  supreme  tragedy  of  Judaism  that 
the  first  general  undoing  of  their  work  should  be  upon 
the  soil  of  America,  through  the  overstrain  of  immi- 
gration upon  Hebrew  morality.  Finally  immigration 
is  a  religious  challenge.  Orthodoxy  tends  to  vanish 
with  the  control  of  the  religious  community  which  can- 
not survive  in  strength  its  transfer  across  the  seas. 
Shall  the  Catholic  and  the  Jew,  who  form  the  bulk  of 
the  new  immigration,  turn  materialistic  in  America, 
or  shall  they  find  a  new  religious  life  springing  out 
of  their  new  experience  and  relations? 

2.  Marked  Group  Cohesion.  As  men  cling  to- 
gether in  panic,  the  first  instinctive  remedy  of  the 
alien  group  for  dislocation  and  its  challenges  is  clan- 
nishness.  The  immigrant  population  sticks  together 
in  crowded  colonies,  invades  similar  industries,  acts  in 
political  unity  under  the  boss,  experiences  a  narrow- 
ing moral  and  religious  tendency  in  which  reactionaries 
tend  to  get  possession  of  the  ancient  sources  of  leader- 
ship. This  tendency  to  swarm  is  the  root  of  most  of 
the  problems  of  the  modern  city,  and  all  of  them 
are  complicated  by  this  reactionary  tendency.  From 
the  standpoint  of  the  nation  one  would  wish  to  scatter 
the  immigrant  into  small  and  easily  assimilable  bands. 
From  the  standpoint  of  his  most  thoughtful  leaders, 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER         115 

however,  there  is  a  real  danger  in  too  rapid  Americani- 
zation. There  is  a  reactionary  mood  and  an  over- 
hasty  one.  Between  them  somewhere  must  lie  the 
secret  of  normal  evolution  into  a  new  life  to  which 
every  people  has  a  right. 

3.  The  Revulsion  of  the  Older  Population.     As  the 
immigrant  group  withdraws   from  us  in  dread,  we 
equally  withdraw  from  it  in  dislike,  and  so  the  dis- 
tance between  us  is  doubled.     The  American  moves 
out  of  the  foreign  district.     He  seeks  another  job  en 
masse  if  the  foreigner  comes  into  his  industry.     He 
denies  the  foreigner  entrance  to  his  social  circle.    He 
leaves  his  religious  organization  if  the  foreigner  gets 
in.     Part  of  the  American's  revulsion  is  intelligible, 
for,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  the  sudden  coming 
of  great  masses  of  aliens  threatens  his  standard  of  liv- 
ing.   The  newcomers  can  underlive  us  and  their  com- 
petition brings  down  our  wages.     On  the  other  hand 
they  bring  new  demands  to  be  supplied,  create  new 
opportunities  for  our  more  established  intelligence  to 
serve,   and  rapidly  adopt  our  standards  themselves. 
Their  gain  on  the  whole  is  far  greater  than  our  loss. 

4.  Disintegration.     In  the  process  of  give  and  take 
there  follows  the  certain  disintegration  of  immigrant 
groups.    In  spite  of  their  best  efforts  at  cohesion  they 
invariably    lose   the   young   people.     Church,    cathe- 
dral, and  synagogue  alike  suffer.     The  bigoted  Jap- 
anese Buddhist,  who  came  to  California  resolved  to 
keep   entirely   clear   of    suggestions    of    Christianity, 
found  even  the  moving  picture  shows  full  of  Christian 


n6  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

suggestiveness.  One  who  has  grown  up  with  it  can- 
not possibly  comprehend  how  freighted  and  saturated 
with  new  influences  is  every  scene  and  activity  of  a 
new  land.  With  America  beating  in  upon  his  brain 
and  heart,  the  young  foreigner  is  bound  to  desert  in 
thought,  if  not  in  fact,  his  native  group.  Unless 
caught  up  into  the  better  phases  of  American  life  he 
becomes  the  social  rebel  and  criminal,  and  the  disin- 
tegration of  the  foreign  colony  thus  becomes  the  dis- 
integration of  society  in  general.  The  more  success- 
ful and  progressive  members  of  the  foreign-speaking 
group  also  tend  to  desert  it.  The  millionaire  or  lit- 
erary Jew  moves  out  of  the  ghetto  and  loses  himself 
in  American  society,  thus  robbing  the  people  of  their 
natural  leaders ;  so  that  disintegrating  foreign-speak- 
ing groups  are  even  more  dependent  than  others  upon 
the  purposeful  leadership  of  patriotic  and  Christian 
agencies. 

5.  Assimilation.  In  the  molding  of  the  original 
American  stock  the  elements  were  very  diverse  and 
the  resulting  sectional  and  regional  variations  were 
considerable.  Each  chief  element  brought  some  con- 
tribution of  genius  or  tendency  which  was  not  totally 
lost  in  the  resultant  fusion,  the  survival  of  which  has 
added  variety  and  interest  to  our  national  life.  In 
perspective  we  are  reconciled  to  the  variations  in  our 
English-speaking  tradition  introduced  by  the  Irish  and 
German  immigration  before  1880.  It  made  our  cities 
and  helped  develop  our  West.  In  time  of  war  it 
shared  our  blood  baptism  into  national  unity.  The 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER         117 

present  generation  thinks  of  America  as  naturally 
and  fittingly  including  such  variations  in  civilization 
as  are  presented  by  the  surviving  peculiarities  of  these 
groups. 

The  Saturation  Point.  The  real  heart  of  our  pres- 
ent fears  as  to  immigration  concerns  the  suddenness 
and  bulk  of  a  new  kind  of  people  whom  we  suspect  on 
racial  grounds  and  otherwise  of  being  a  new  quality 
of  human  stuff.  We  are  not  clear  whether,  coming 
in  such  large  numbers  as  they  do  and  presenting  a 
wider  variation  from  the  dominant  civilization  of  our 
people,  they  may  not  introduce  stubborn  dissimilarities 
which  will  make  it  permanently  harder  to  work  out 
American  destinies  under  the  ideals  of  democracy  and 
the  Christian  faith.  A  saturation  point  has  un- 
doubtedly been  reached  in  some  of  our  more  con- 
gested regions.  No  one  can  believe  that  immigrants 
of  such  quality  should  be  dumped  down  where  there 
are  already  too  many.  Both  the  maintenance  of  the 
American  standards  of  living  and  the  operation  of 
the  American  institutions  are  made  difficult  under 
such  circumstances. 

The  Great-Heart  Among  Nations.  That  immigra- 
tion should  be  controlled  with  reference  to  assimila- 
tion is  a  formula  that  few  will  challenge.  Its  applic- 
ability to  concrete  issues  however  leaves  room  for 
many  debates.  Most  of  the  tests  by  which  the  check- 
ing of  immigration  has  been  proposed  are  at  outs  with 
our  traditions  and  obnoxious  to  our  convictions. 
Christians  who  take  the  world  view-point  of  foreign 


ii8  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

missions  will  be  unable  to  regard  the  welfare  of 
America  alone  in  thinking  about  the  immigration 
problem.  Our  brethren  across  the  seas  are  as  truly 
our  brethren  as  the  native-born.  Check  we  may,  di- 
rect we  should,  but  essentially  to  obstruct  so  reverend 
an  epic  process  as  the  migration  of  peoples  in  the 
search  for  ideals  would  be  the  unfaithfulness  of 
America  to  her  finest  mission.  Our  gates  should  be 
still  open  to  the  North,  South,  East,  and  West,  though 
more  precise  and  scientific  tests  of  fitness  and  greater 
certainty  of  practical  advantage  on  the  part  of  the 
incoming  stranger  may  well  be  required. 

6.  Dilution.  The  outcome  of  the  immigration 
process  cannot  fail  to  be  the  dilution  of  the  American 
type  by  alien  elements.  "Dilution"  is  a  figure  of  speech 
generally  used  in  a  deprecatory  sense.  Of  course  the 
peculiar  stream  of  American  life  will  be  diluted  and 
its  inner  qualities  changed ;  but  the  so-called  alien  ele- 
ments are  already  in  the  same  world  which  Americans 
have  to  inhabit.  The  result  of  their  inclusion  in  our 
midst  will  simply  be  a  somewhat  modified  ratio  of 
the  elements  as  adjusted  here.  We  dilute  the  life 
of  the  alien  far  more  than  he  does  ours.  He  brings 
us  positive  gifts;  not  merely  raw  labor  power,  but 
various  fine  heredities  and  conspicuous  national  tal- 
ents ;  he  brings  also  optimism  and  idealism  which  tend 
to  dry  up  in  the  older  stocks.  From  the  moment  we 
reached  the  Pacific  coast  and  found  our  free  land 
occupied  the  chief  ground  of  our  historic  idealism 
failed  us.  From  that  moment  we  needed  intensely  a 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER         119 

new  world  commerce  in  morals  and  sentiments.  Thus 
some  of  the  finest  exemplifications  of  the  modern  so- 
cial spirit  are  found  in  the  American  Hebrew.  It  is 
precisely  the  higher  interests  of  our  national  life — 
our  music,  art,  and  literature — which  are  most  con- 
spicuously indebted  to  the  foreigner.  As  the  "mud- 
hog"  sinking  the  foundations  of  our  tunnels  and  our 
sky-scrapers  far  underground,  and  as  the  poet  singing 
from  the  loftiest  pinnacle  of  our  achievement,  he  of- 
fers his  share  to  the  common  life. 

Missions  and  Dislocation.  To  each  of  these  phases 
of  the  give  and  take  of  immigration  there  is  a  positive 
and  appropriate  home  missionary  ministry.  To  meet 
the  immigrant  in  his  first  shock  of  dislocation  and  be- 
wilderment, home  missions  send  a  representative  to 
Ellis  Island  to  soften  the  gruffness  of  officialism,  and 
become  responsible  for  the  newcomer  whose  friends  or 
relatives  fail  to  meet  him,  or  who  is  without  sufficient 
money  to  reach  his  proper  destination.  The  guardian- 
ship of  unprotected  girls  and  women  is  also  their  spe^ 
cial  care.  While  duplicatory  and  not  always  properly 
supervised  private  agencies  have  seriously  compromised 
the  efforts  of  the  missionary  boards  to  use  this  initial 
opportunity  for  service,  its  helpfulness  is  still  great. 
Naturally  the  immigrant's  most  necessary  tool  in  the 
new  land  is  the  English  language,  without  which  he 
can  neither  know  his  rights  nor  contribute  his  share 
of  human  intercourse  to  his  new  home.  In  far  slighter 
measure  than  one  would  wish  and  with  not  nearly  so 
much  efficiency  as  the  Jewish  community,  Protestant- 


120  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

ism,  chiefly  through  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation, but  increasingly  under  the  impulse  of  home 
missionary  direction,  has  begun  to  teach  the  alien 
English,  and  to  give  him  his  first  lessons  in  patriotism. 
This  has  been  the  long-time  and  most  characteristic 
approach  of  Oriental  missions  to  Chinese  and  Japan- 
ese. 

Missions  and  Group  Cohesion.  Utilizing  and  mak- 
ing the  best  of  the  tendency  to  group  cohesion,  home 
missions  for  many  years  have  organized  the  Protestant 
immigrant  into  foreign-speaking  churches,  with  pas- 
tors of  their  own  race,  and  supported  them  by  frater- 
nal counsel  and  supervision  and  grants  of  money. 
Naturally  those  European  denominations  like  the 
Lutherans,  which  early  became  naturalized  in  America, 
have  had  the  larger  opportunity  with  the  incoming 
millions  of  their  own  language  and  faith,  but  many 
of  the  larger  denominations  have  long  had  conspicu- 
ous success  in  the  evangelization  of  Scandinavian  and 
German  immigrants,  as  well  as  those  of  more  recent 
arrival.  Of  Southern  Europeans,  Italians  furnish 
the  most  hopeful  material  for  Protestant  evangeliza- 
tion. Under  urban  conditions  there  is  a  growing  ten- 
dency to  organize  the  foreigner  into  branch  churches, 
sometimes  occupying  the  same  building  with  the  sup- 
porting American  church  and  preferably  under  its 
careful  control. 

The  Guidance  of  Foreign-speaking  Churches.  The 
chief  weakness  of  these  efforts  is  the  lack  of  satis- 
factory leaders,  both  as  to  character  and  ability,  and 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER        121 

as  to  fitness  for  modern  social  guidance.  The  danger 
from  the  reactionary  is  great  A  sincere  and  conse- 
crated man  sometimes  contrives  simply  to  lead  his 
people  away  from  broad  American  sympathies.  The 
schools  therefore  which  train  the  foreigner  for  effective 
work  with  his  own  people  are  vitally  necessary.  The 
ultimate  guidance  of  these  foreign-speaking  churches 
is  an  exacting  problem  for  the  missionary  administra- 
tor. They  are  frequently  sensitive,  self-opinionated, 
veneered  with  American  progress  rather  than  funda- 
mentally changed.  The  supporting  boards  must  stub- 
bornly lead  where  they  only  seem  to  help.  They  must 
be  sympathetic,  eternally  patient,  bearing  and  endur- 
ing all  things;  but  they  must  not  let  group-cohesion 
define,  limit,  or  thwart  the  social  realization  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  united  nation. 

Living  Ties.  The  only  basis  of  vital  and  enduring 
leadership  is  genuine  and  spontaneous  fellowship.  Of- 
ficial ministries  are  but  the  giving  of  stones  for  bread, 
so  long  as  the  average  church-member  in  his  personal 
life  is  deliberately  sundered  from  the  foreigner.  The 
irony  of  the  situation  would  be  unendurable  except  for 
those  great  mediatorial  souls — our  missionaries — 
whose  friendships  bridge  for  us  the  class,  language, 
and  color  lines;  who  in  their  lives  preach  peace  to 
those  who  are  afar  off  and  to  those  who  are  near. 
But  for  them  how  deep  and  hopeless  would  the  es- 
trangement be  between  the  diverse  elements  of  the 
nation!  Their  devotion  does  not  excuse  but  rather 
shames  our  lack,  but  how  they  link  the  land  together 


122  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

with  their  hearts!  And  what  genuine  and  abiding 
satisfaction  they  find  in  their  friends  from  other 
lands;  how  little  condescension  and  sense  of  superi- 
ority there  is  about  the  real  missionary ! 

Notable  Workers.  Dr.  E.  A.  Adams  gave  his  earlier 
missionary  service  to  Bohemia  herself,  and  then  came 
home  to  a  notable  career  in  the  heart  of  the  Bohemian 
section  in  Chicago.  Here  he  identified  his  fortunes; 
here  he  reared  and  educated  his  sons  and  daughters  and 
proved  that  missionaries'  children  may  be  none  the 
worse  for  social  sacrifice.  For  forty  years  Dr.  William 
C.  Pond  has  been  a  father  to  the  Chinese  of  the  whole 
Pacific  Coast.  Going  South  as  a  boy  in  his  teens  with  a 
missionary  father,  Dr.  E.  C.  Silsby  has  devoted  virtu- 
ally the  whole  of  a  long  life  to  Christian  service  for  the 
Negro.  Ranged  with  these  venerable  peers  of  the 
apostles  is  the  splendid  band  of  those  who  are  newly 
linking  their  lives  with  the  lives  of  the  stranger  to 
teach  him  the  ways  of  the  flag  and  of  the  cross.  They 
do  not  pass  by  on  the  other  side;  and  they  find  the 
Samaritan  an  interesting  and  lovable  type  who  makes 
a  remarkable  recovery  from  his  wounds  under  the 
medicine  of  fellowship.  This  is  home  missions  at 
their  best. 

Missions  and  Disintegration.  Protestant  home  mis- 
sions have  a  peculiar  responsibility  for  alien  groups  in 
their  disintegration.  Children  and  youth  especially 
need  the  evangelical  gospel.  Speaking  for  himself,  the 
author  largely  excepts  the  Jew  from  this  responsi- 
bility. He  bqiieves  that  the  Hebrew  faith  in  America 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER         123 

is  destined  to  evolve  into  essential  Christianity  and 
that,  in  its  progressive  wing,  it  already  shows  strong 
tendencies  to  quick,  democratic  adaptation  to  modern 
conditions.  The  social  ministries  of  the  Hebrew 
Church  are  many  and  effective.  They  have  set  the 
pace  for  Protestant  missions  not  once  nor  twice.  We 
should  cooperate  therefore  in  civic  and  moral  reforms 
with  enlightened  Jews,  should  respect  and  strengthen 
the  vital  forces  of  their  religion  and  should  not  prose- 
lyte their  youth,  believing  that  they  will  come  most 
surely  to  know  Christ  through  the  practise  of  his  so- 
cial teaching. 

Roman  Catholic  Immigrants.  Similar  considera- 
tions would  apply  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  so 
far  as  it  is  actually  holding  its  immigrant  youth 
to  vital  religion  and  so  far  as  it  is  truly  democratic 
and  modern.  There  are  exceptional  localities  in  which 
it  is  all  of  this.  As  a  first  aid  in  the  religious  placing 
of  undigested  alien  masses,  its  social  service  is  tremen- 
dous. Nowhere  is  it  the  part  of  home  missions  to  at- 
tack or  tear  it  down,  though  specific  Catholic  aggres- 
sions are  to  be  resisted.  The  most  outstanding  fact 
however,  about  the  Roman  Church  in  America  is  that 
it  does  not  hold  its  own.  Vast  as  its  numbers  are 
they  would  be  twice  as  large  had  that  Church  been  able 
to  retain  the  great  immigrant  masses  of  its  adherents 
who  have  thronged  to  our  shores.  The  millions  of  its 
young  deserters  are  the  ripe  field  of  Protestantism. 
This  is  a  social  rather  than  an  ecclesiastical  judgment. 
Religion  must  adjust  the  alien  to  the  new  world  on 


124  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

democratic  terms.  Only  Protestantism  can  meet  this 
test.  That  Protestantism  shall  not  fail  to  do  so  is  the 
burden  of  home  missions. 

Building  on  Old-world  Missionary  Foundations. 
There  are  moreover  deep-rooted  elements  of  his- 
toric Protestantism  in  populations  generally  counted 
as  Catholic.  Thus  hundreds  of  Italians  in  New  York 
City,  who  had  never  known  the  touch  of  missions  in 
America,  reported  themselves  to  the  Census  as  Protes- 
tants. The  land  of  Huss  could  not  be  without  a  strong 
Protestant  tradition.  Foreign  mission  converts  from 
papal  lands  and  from  the  Near  and  Far  East  trickle 
by  hundreds  through  the  immigrant  millions.  Home 
missions  cannot  do  less  than  conserve  what  foreign 
missions  have  saved. 

Missions  and  Assimilation.  Less  spectacular  than 
peculiar  and  separate  institutions  for  foreign-speaking 
peoples,  but  sounder  and  more  happy  is  the  persistent 
assimilating  process  which  takes  the  foreigner  right 
into  the  American  community  and  church.  With  the 
northern  European,  especially  upon  the  frontier,  this 
was  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception.  The  pioneer 
home  missionary  church  was  typically  a  fusion  of 
human  elements.  One  of  the  author's  childhood  rec- 
ollections is  of  a  Norwegian  Sunday-school  superin- 
tendent, and  he  grew  up  without  any  deep  sense  of 
separation  from  the  Scandinavian  boys  who  were  his 
schoolfellows.  We  burden  our  souls  so  much  now- 
adays with  the  difficulties  of  assimilation  as  to  for- 


THE  CITY  AND  THE  STRANGER        125 

get  our  tremendous  successes,  which  are  the  world's 
marvel,  and  which  are  still  largely  operative. 

A  New  England  Example.  -About  twenty  years 
ago  a  young  minister  took  up  a  pastorate,  which  was 
to  last  for  over  fifteen  years,  in  a  Connecticut  mill 
town.  His  church  was  a  merger  of  two  ancient  par- 
ishes, which,  with  the  dying  off  of  the  native  stock, 
had  been  starved  into  uniting.  The  predominant  mill 
population  was  German  and  there  were  a  few  of 
their  children  in  the  Sunday-school.  At  the  end  of 
the  fifteen  years  the  church-membership  was  chiefly 
of  German  extraction  so  Americanized  as  co  continue 
the  best  Puritan  traditions.  By  this  time  however 
a  new  generation  of  common  labor  had  arrived  upon 
the  scene,  consisting  of  Catholic  Polanders.  To 
win  the  Germans  required  only  that  the  Puritan  church 
should  cease  to  be  conceited  and  that  its  pastor  should 
be  persistently  faithful  in  work  with  the  children. 
But  neither  of  these  could  penetrate  within  Polish 
bigotry  and  clannishness.  The  pastor  therefore 
changed  his  tactics;  made  friends  with  the  Catholic 
priest,  saw  to  it  that  the  Polish  group-leaders  were 
recognized  in  civic  affairs,  and  enlisted  them  in  a  no- 
license  movement.  Assimilation  includes  both  proc- 
esses. When  individuals  cannot  be  directly  reached 
and  their  group  brought  to  disappear  in  the  general 
community  life,  they  may  yet  be  effectively  included 
under  common  ideals.  A  staunch  and  aggressive 
minority,  in  possession  of  social  tradition  and  organi- 
zation, may  still  subject  armies  of  aliens.  Thus  the 


126  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Puritan  spirit  still  dominates  New  England,  and  its 
best  ideals,  as  expressed  in  O'Reilly's  great  tribute  to 
the  Pilgrims,  are  the  common  possession  of  Yankee 
and  Irishman. 

Missions  and  Dilution.  Naturally  there  is  no  home 
missionary  agency  which  deliberately  strives  for  the 
dilution  of  American  life  or  the  American  Church  by 
alien  elements.  But  home  missions  does  purposefully 
introduce  into  the  Church  those  who  humanly  justify 
the  apostolic  epithets,  "more  feeble,"  "less  honor- 
able," "uncomely."  Less  steady  alike  in  faith  and  in 
morals,  with  lower  standards  of  general  intelligence 
and  of  religious  taste,  compelled  to  make  present  shift 
with  an  inadequately  prepared  ministry,  they  range 
themselves,  no  more  strangers  and  aliens,  but  fellow 
citizens  with  the  saints.  Their  ultimate  contribution 
to  it  will  be  worthy  of  membership  in  the  body.  Of 
none  may  the  Church  say,  "I  have  no  need  of  you." 
Doubtless  the  present  average  of  American  Christian- 
ity is  in  many  respects  lowered  by  their  inclusion. 
They  do  not  make  it  easier  for  the  Church  to  be  free 
from  spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing;  they  do  help 
it  to  include  men  out  of  every  tribe  and  tongue  and 
people  and  nation  who  are  to  throng  the  holy  city. 
In  the  deliberate  judgment  of  home  missions  the  lat- 
ter alternative  is  more  worthy  of  Christ's  Church. 
It  is  his  finally  to  present  it  to  God  faultless;  it  is 
ours  to  see  that  not  the  least  of  his  brethren  is  absent 
from  the  ranks  in  that  great  day. 


SOCIAL    KNOWLEDGE    AND    SOCIAL 
JUSTICE 


CHAPTER  V 
SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  SOCIAL  JUSTICE 

Standing  Room  Only.  Just  after  the  Revolution- 
ary war  a  soldier  received  from  his  grateful  country 
a  grant  of  five  thousand  acres  of  land  in  central 
Tennessee.  Early  in  the  last  century  this  tract  was 
cut  up  into  farms  for  pioneer  settlers.  These  were 
described  in  the  old  records  by  natural  land-marks — 
this  gum  tree  and  that  big  hickory — which  time  and 
civilization  long  since  removed.  One  who  went  re- 
cently to  locate  his  ancestral  acres  within  this  tract 
could  identify  them  only  by  the  mill-site.  There 
was  but  one  mill-site  on  the  five  thousand  acres.  The 
man  who  got  it  became  a  man  of  power  over  his 
fellows.  To  him  must  every  stubborn  pioneer  back 
bend,  as  it  brought  corn  to  be  ground.  There  are 
no  more  unoccupied  farms  for  the  newcomer  and 
there  never  was  more  than  one  mill-site.  Let  the  five 
thousand  acres  stand  for  the  national  domain  and  the 
mill-site  for  its  limited  natural  resources — its  water- 
power,  and  waterways,  its  harbors,  mineral  deposits, 
and  forests — and  one  has  America  in  miniature.  The 
land  and  its  points  of  strategic  value  are  all  pos- 

129 


130  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

sessed.  They  who  possess  them  control  the  nation 
and  the  later  comer.  Our  perplexity  over  this  fact 
is  what  we  call  the  social  problem. 

Who  Owns  the  Nation?  Of  course  the  case  is  not 
quite  so  simple  as  our  preliminary  illustration  might 
suggest.  Upon  the  primary  basis  of  control  of  land 
and  natural  resources  modern  civilization  has  built  up 
a  great  social  order  in  which  the  transformation  and 
transportation  of  the  raw  materials  of  wealth  are  of 
equal  moment  with  the  productive  land,  its  fields,  for- 
ests, and  mines.  Whoever  therefore  owns  the  factory 
and  the  railroad  controls  the  nation.  But  these  again 
are  so  vast  that  no  one  can  own  them  except  as  he 
first  borrows  the  savings  of  many  thousands  of  ordi- 
nary people.  This  the  adventurous,  extraordinary 
man  does;  and  by  so  doing  is  able,  with  others  like 
him,  to  organize  great  systems  of  control  over 
lands  and  produce,  coal  fields,  oil  deposits,  railways 
and  steamships,  terminals  and  harbors,  banks  and 
exchanges,  public  privileges  and  the  making  of  laws, 
newspapers  and  the  agencies  of  public  opinion  and 
conscience.  To  control  this  man,  with  his  hordes  of 
allies  and  dependents  who  have  had  their  lives  fitted 
into  and  their  thinking  tempered  by  this  vast  organi- 
zation, is  the  second  great  factor  of  the  social  prob- 
lem. 

The  Industrial  Toilers.  But  the  chief  aspect  is  the 
possession  by  capitalistic  organization  of  vast  out- 
numbering millions  of  propertyless  workingmen  whom 
it  calls  its  hands,  and  whom  it  pays  what  it  calls  wages. 


SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE     131 

Large  numbers  of  them  perform  skilled  tasks  and  re- 
ceive pay  equal  to  or  beyond  that  ordinarily  received 
by  the  school-teachers,  newspaper  men,  artists,  musi- 
cians, book-writers,  ministers,  and  other  spiritual  lead- 
ers of  the  nation.  But  still  larger  numbers  do  not 
receive  enough  to  take  their  homes  out  of  sordid  and 
ugly  surroundings,  nor  to  leave  margin  for  defense 
against  sickness  and  unemployment,  nor  to  keep  family 
life  intact,  nor  to  prevent  the  benumbing  fear  of  want, 
nor  frequent  actual  undernutrition. 

The  Human  Factor.  These  millions  of  low-paid 
workers  are  not  in  every  respect  amiable  human  beings. 
They  want,  many  of  them,  more  than  they  have,  but 
also  more  than  they  can  or  ought  to  have  without  great 
improvement  in  their  personal  efficiency.  In  their 
present  frame  of  mind,  the  best  of  conditions  would 
not  make  them  happy.  Some  of  them  we  have  met 
among  the  Strangers  of  our  earlier  chapter;  others 
we  will  meet  among  the  Race  Problems.  They  are 
not  easy  of  adjustment  within  the  nation.  They  re- 
spond imperfectly  to  the  loyalties  which  are  our  second 
nature.  Their  vivid  class  consciousness  makes  them 
difficult  to  work  with ;  their  conduct  frequently  makes 
them  difficult  to  apologize  for.  They  are  like  the  rest 
of  us  in  these  respects.  They  are  not  nearly  so  hum- 
ble as  they  want  the  Church  to  be  and  are  not  con- 
scious of  any  social  sins  to  repent  of.  Their  moral 
and  spiritual  discipline  is  one  of  the  prime  phases  of 
their  social  problem.  They  need  to  be  made  fit  for 
their  present  and  prospective  tasks,  and  for  the  fellow- 


132  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

ship  and  responsibilities  to  which  they  aspire.  At  the 
same  time  their  mood  is  eager  rather  than  sodden: 
they  have  positive  moral  ideals  and  are  developing 
fresh  loyalties,  which  put  them  far  and  away  beyond 
any  mood  which  is  merely  conservative  or  any  moral- 
ity which  is  enthralled  by  the  past.  They  bring  a 
definite  contribution  to  the  social  problem  and  repre- 
sent a  fundamental  attack  upon  it.  Their  great  mes- 
sage to  the  nation  is  that  social  issues  are  upon  us, 
that  they  are  to  be  taken  seriously,  that  men  must  live 
with  them  day  and  night,  and  that  nothing  which 
claims  to  be  fundamental,  as  religion  does,  can  make 
them  anything  but  central  in  its  interest. 

The  Vision  and  Machinery  of  Justice  Alike  Lack- 
ing. On  the  whole  America  finds  herself  unprepared 
to  meet  the  social  problem  which  has  stolen  upon 
us  as  a  thief  in  the  night.  Half  the  nation  scarcely 
knows  that  there  is  one;  the  other  half  knows  that 
there  is  but  does  not  know  what  to  do  about  it.  We 
should  have  no  agencies  to  carry  out  our  knowledge 
if  we  had  it  We  are  alike  without  the  vision  and  the 
machinery  of  justice.  Thus  one  reports  that  a  chief 
industrial  city  of  the  South  represents  a  "survival  from 
the  farmer-economy,  whose  common  needs  and  in- 
dividual responsibilities  are  very  different  from  those 
of  this  massed  industrial  population  dropped  down  in 
the  geographical  center  of  the  cotton-belt.  It  is  of  a 
piece  with  the  cramped  city  limits,  the  village  council, 
the  outgrown  income,  the  criss-cross  town  plan,  the 
cruil  service  based  on  fees,  the  farmyard  sanitation, 


REV.  JOSIAH   STRONG 

A  pioneer  in  social  reconstruction 


SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE    133 

the  stupid  system  of  municipal  works  .  .  .  With  no 
public  library,  no  public  recreation,  no  meeting  hall  for 
her  citizens,  no  city  plan  for  growth."1  In  other 
words,  Birmingham,  with  her  20,000  coal  and  iron 
workers,  just  happened.  She  does  not  represent  so- 
cial reason,  social  conscience,  or  social  control;  and 
with  minor  variations  Birmingham  in  these  respects  is 
a  piece  of  America.  Thus  our  unpreparedness  for  it 
is  a  final  factor  in  the  social  situation. 

The  Early  Response  of  the  Church.  In  its  recogni- 
tion of  the  moral  urgency  of  the  social  situation  the 
Church  was  not  second  among  American  forces.  Not 
soon  enough,  yet  as  soon  as  any  one  else  she  began  to 
sense  its  importance.  By  the  time  outside  criticism 
of  the  Church  for  social  neglect  had  become  acute, 
self-criticism  had  become  drastic.  By  1889,  while 
such  courses  were  still  rare  in  the  universities,  three 
Congregational  theological  seminaries  in  New  England 
were  teaching  young  ministers  to  study  social  prob- 
lems radically.  Men  like  Josiah  Strong,  Washington 
Gladden  and  Richard  T.  Ely  had  become  Christian 
evangelists  of  social  duty.  By  1893  the  Baptist  and 
Congregational  communions  had  developed  active 
propagandas  for  social  justice.  Many  men  were  speak- 
ing with  heat  and  some  with  light.  This  prophetic 
phase  of  the  movement  had  also  its  martyrs  at  the 
hands  of  conservatism  and  complacency.  But  on  the 
whole  the  Church  responded  rapidly.  Institutional 
and  social  service  activities  were  begun  in  many  par- 

*G.  R.  Taylor,  The  Survey,  January,  1912. 


134  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

ishes  and  the  social  conscience  became  the  sudden  pos- 
session of  a  new  Christian  generation. 

Slower  Officialism.  As  late  as  1900,  however,  Dr. 
Strong  could  not  catalog  any  general  home  missionary 
movement  of  social  betterment  except  service  for  the 
backward  races.  In  mitigation  of  this  delay  it  may 
be  urged  that  collective  action  must  necessarily  wait 
upon  the  development  of  the  average  conscience.  Vol- 
untary organization  may  forge  ahead  under  prophetic 
impulse,  but  official  agencies  have  to  organize  and 
bring  up  the  main  body  of  the  Lord's  host.  Thus 
social  issues  got  into  home  missions  as  early  as  into 
national  politics,  and  into  missionary  offices  sooner. 
Now  practically  every  important  denomination  has  an 
official  social  service  agency  either  incorporated  with 
its  existing  home  missionary  machinery  or  additional 
to  and  allied  with  it ;  while,  in  the  collective  advocacy 
of  home  missions  through  federated  agencies,  the  so- 
cial note  has  become  distinctly  dominant.  The  Federal 
Council  of  Churches  more  and  more  stresses  social 
interests  as  the  common  burden  of  American  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  marvel  is,  not  that  some  conservative 
sects  oppose  this  tendency,  but  that  more  do  not. 

Redirecting  Home  Missions.  Yet  one  has  to  con- 
fess a  certain  defensive  and  apologetic  attitude  in  the 
official  literature  of  social  Christianity  hitherto.  The 
current  assent  of  the  Church  to  the  social  gospel  has 
reached  the  stage  of  official  toleration,  but  in  many 
instances  has  not  gone  much  further.  When  it  comes 
to  the  redirection  of  home  missions  in  detail,  to  the  re- 


SOCIAL   KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE    135 

casting  of  policies  and  particularly  to  the  shifting 
of  appropriations,  old  ways  are  stubborn.  Outside 
the  realm  of  formulas  and  inside  the  field  of  action 
lies  the  test  of  all  professions.  In  home  missions  it 
concerns  not  merely  the  redirecting  of  the  whole  proc- 
ess, but  ultimately  the  moving  of  perhaps  five  million 
dollars  a  year  in  appropriations  and  15,000  men  from 
conventional  or  sectarian  to  social  tasks — a  step  for 
which  no  one  is  quite  ready  as  yet. 

Inescapable  Social  Issues.  This  book  then  seeks  to 
urge  the  futility  of  superficial  measures  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  radical  action.  Vast  and  sudden  changes 
in  society  demand  equal  changes  in  the  Church. 
Twenty-five  years  ago  a  man  said  in  the  spirit  of  the 
apostle,  "I  am  debtor  to  barbarians" ;  and  lost  himself 
in  the  Indian  country  on  the  upper  Missouri  River. 
Years  were  passed  in  lonely  labor,  when  suddenly 
there  broke  in  upon  his  solitude  construction  gangs 
of  aliens  to  build  a  railroad — Greeks,  they  were.  So 
the  missionary  added  modern  Greek  to  his  accomplish- 
ments, sent  to  Athens  for  Testaments  and  amended  his 
life  motto  to  read,  "I  am  debtor  both  to  Greeks  and  to 
barbarians."  After  the  Greeks  came  Japanese,  sleepy- 
ing  in  the  same  bunk  houses  and  remaining  as  section 
men  after  the  construction  gangs  had  passed  on. 
With  the  fencing  of  the  ranges  the  stockmen  crowded 
into  the  Indian  country,  starting  a  trail  of  graft  which 
led  to  the  senate-chamber  of  the  United  States,  which 
the  missionary  must  follow  or  run  from  duty.  After 
the  stockman  came  the  Dutch  renter  following  the 


136  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

irrigation  ditch;  and  after  him,  with  the  opening  of 
the  reservation,  the  country  towns.  Where  railroads 
crossed  on  the  edge  of  the  reservation  sprang  up  sud- 
denly the  little  city,  surrounded  by  a  region  of  inten- 
sive farming,  on  whose  depot  platform  one  to-day  will 
watch  a  dozen  nationalities  as  he  waits  for  a  train. 
A  man  went  into  the  wilderness  to  preach  a  simple 
evangelism,  and  lo,  Jerusalem  and  all  Judea  went  out 
to  him.  God  pursued  this  man  of  the  obscure,  single- 
hearted  mission  with  all  manner  and  complexities  of 
social  problems.  He  could  not  free  himself  from  them. 
No  more  can  the  Church.  It  is  beset  behind  and  be- 
fore by  social  issues.  And  what  it  must  meet  it  should 
master  for  its  Master's  sake. 

No  Compromise!  No  moderate  or  compromising 
mood  therefore  is  fitting.  The  age  needs  the  alert 
passion  of  original  Christianity.  The  Church  needs 
an  energizing  consciousness  of  its  ties  to  the  lowliest 
and  the  furthest.  It  must  enforce  an  aggressive 
brotherliness  in  the  face  of  growing  fixity  of  social 
classes.  One  cannot  pass  from  one  American  city  to 
another  nor  go  back  to  his  boyhood  country  home  for 
a  visit  without  keenly  realizing  the  increased  separate- 
ness  of  men  of  diverse  fortunes  within  his  own  life- 
time. Who  then  can  doubt  that  it  is  time  to  be  radi- 
cal? We  must  give  over  planting  children's  gardens 
on  vacant  city  lots  when  the  need  is  to  tax  the  lots 
out  of  vacancy. 

The  Approach  through  Social  Knowledge.  The 
most  characteristic  and  notable  aspect  of  the  home  mis- 


SOCIAL   KNOWLEDGE   AND  JUSTICE     137 

sionary  attack  upon  the  social  situation  is  its  method 
of  approach.  The  impatience  of  social  passion  is 
checked,  the  radical  spirit  is  made  effective  by  the 
approach  through  precise  social  knowledge.  What- 
ever others  may  do,  home  missions  propose  to  find 
out  social  duty  first  of  all  by  the  investigation  of  defi- 
nite areas  and  the  conditions  of  the  life  and  labor  of 
their  people.  They  start,  not  with  the  social  order  in 
general,  but  with  one's  own  community.  They  dis- 
cover the  needs  of  that  community  by  a  "survey"  of 
all  its  significant  conditions.  All  the  experts,  all  the 
official  programs  agree  on  this  method  of  approach. 

The  Case  of  Muscatine.  In  1911  a  Commission 
of  the  Social  Service  Secretaries  of  leading  denomina- 
tions, cooperating  through  the  Federal  Council  of 
Churches,  thus  approached  the  acute  social  problem  of 
Muscatine,  Iowa.  This  flourishing  city  of  20,000  on 
the  borders  of  a  prairie  state  was  one  in  which  the 
strength  and  success  of  earlier  home  missions  had  been 
notably  exemplified.  It  had  suddenly  developed  a  ro- 
mantic and  profitable  industry — that  of  making  pearl 
buttons  from  the  clam-shells  which  are  furnished  in 
great  quantity  by  the  Mississippi  River.  By  this  in- 
dustry nearly  half  of  its  population  lived;  yet  both 
the  community  and  the  state  of  which  it  was  a  part 
had  ignored  many  of  the  possibilities  which  grew  out 
of  this  fact  and  were  totally  unprepared  to  meet  them. 
Industrial  conditions  were  not  seriously  bad.  When, 
however,  the  workers  attempted  to  get  comparatively 
minor  grievances  rectified  by  organizing  a  union  they 


138  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

were  met  by  a  prompt  lockout.  Petty  violence  was 
resorted  to  in  return  and  the  persecution  of  non-union 
workers.  The  militia  was  called  out ;  and  later  private 
detectives  hired  from  Chicago.  A  futile  return  to 
work  was  arranged  through  the  intervention  of  the 
churches,  the  chamber  of  commerce,  and  the  governor 
of  the  state.  It  failed  because  it  did  not  go  to  the 
roots  of  the  trouble  and  was  in  the  interest  of  peace 
rather  than  of  justice.  A  general  strike  followed,  with 
additional  violence,  which  alienated  public  sympathy 
from  the  strikers  and  shunted  the  minds  of  the  com- 
munity from  the  issue  of  social  justice  to  that  of 
public  order.  Finally  the  whole  situation  became  in- 
coherent— a  matter  of  overstrained  temper  and  nerves. 
Workmen  abandoned  their  homes  seeking  work  else- 
where and  factories  moved  to  other  places.  In  terms 
of  the  community,  the  losses  to  purse,  to  poise  of 
mind,  and  to  human  kindness  were  enormous. 

A  Gross  of  Buttons.  The  report  of  the  Commis- 
sion made  it  plain  that  there  was  a  rather  simple  but 
unsolved  technical  issue  at  the  bottom  of  the  whole 
difficulty,  namely,  how  many  buttons  made  a  gross? 
Wages  were  paid  for  so  many  gross  of  buttons;  but 
was  a  gross  a  gross  of  buttons  or  of  good  buttons? 
What  were  good  buttons ;  buttons  which  sold  at  stand- 
ard price  or  at  any  price?  If  all  marketable  buttons 
were  to  be  counted,  at  what  rate  ?  This  involved  the 
question  whether  the  lowest  grade  buttons  were  pro- 
duced at  a  profit  or  a  loss,  and  this  the  manufacturers' 
crude  system  of  accounting  failed  to  reveal.  Mani- 


SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE    139 

festly  this  question  was  not  to  be  settled  by  orating 
upon  street  corners  nor  by  the  muskets  of  militia.  It 
needed  just  a  production  expert  and  a  cost  accountant 
to  devise  a  clear  definition  of  a  gross  of  buttons  as  an 
invariable  basis  for  wages.  But  as  the  Commission 
pertinently  remarked,  this  simple  point  had  become 
the  supreme  test  of  religious  values  in  Muscatine  just 
then. 

All  Have  Sinned.  The  report  of  the  Commission 
went  on  to  deal  out  even-handed  criticism  to  all  parties 
who  had  so  conspicuously  failed  in  their  "mutual  re- 
sponsibilities: to  the  manufacturers  for  their  unwill- 
ingness to  allow  the  workers  to  organize  while  they 
themselves  were  practising  this  same  fundamental 
right,  and  for  their  refusal  to  recognize  the  community 
as  being  a  party  at  interest  in  all  industrial  situations ; 
to  the  workers  for  injustice  to  non-unionists,  for  gross 
misrepresentation  of  factory  conditions,  for  public  dis- 
order, and  for  a  disregard  of  the  community  exactly 
equal  to  that  of  the  manufacturers.  It  condemned  the 
churches  for  failure  as  teachers  of  public  morals  to 
include  leadership  as  to  industrial  conditions,  for 
permitting-  unnecessary,  loose,  and  aggravating  ideas 
to  dominate  the  public  mind  and  for  not  pointing 
prospectively  the  way  of  social  righteousness  and 
peace.  It  found  the  community  guilty  of  not  under- 
standing the  relation  of  industry  to  civic  responsibility, 
for  not  providing  such  means  of  social  recreation  as 
would  have  been  a  safety-valve  against  violence,  and 
particularly  for  failure  in  the  development  of  common 


140  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

ideals  and  aspirations.  The  state,  it  pointed  out,  had 
no  adequate  means  of  keeping  public  order  under  con- 
ditions of  industrial  strife,  nor  of  investigating  nor 
preventing  the  evils  which  led  to  such  strife. 

Scientific  Basis  of  Justice.  It  is  not  to  be  pre- 
sumed that  every  one  in  Muscatine  agreed  with  the 
findings  of  the  Commission  in  all  particulars.  It  was 
still  open  to  any  of  the  parties  to  the  situation  to  pre- 
sent its  own  point  of  view  and  plead  its  case  before 
the  bar  of  public  opinion.  It  remained  however  that 
the  Commission  had  viewed  the  whole  situation  in  a 
judicial  spirit  as  no  one  else  had.  Its  members  were 
experienced  in  social  diagnosis.  They  brought  to  bear 
the  best  clues  from  human  experience  elsewhere.  They 
approached  the  problem  of  Muscatine  with  all  the 
social  knowledge  available.  Their  findings  represented 
social  justice  as  nearly  as  we  can  now  approximate 
it  in  such  matters.  This  general  method  home  mis- 
sions recommend  for  universal  application.  It  is  scien- 
tific in  that  it  is  an  application  of  the  method  of  induc- 
tive study  to  actual  conditions.  It  does  not  deal  in 
vague  theories  of  society  but  soberly  seeks  to  point 
out  local  responsibility  and  concrete  remedies  for  social 
ills.  It  is  neither  socialistic  nor  anti-socialistic,  be- 
cause it  does  not  begin  with  philosophy  at  all  but  rather 
with  the  practical  attitudes  of  the  Christian  gospel  to- 
ward all  human  problems. 

Willingness  to  Differ  in  Details.  It  is  strategic 
because  it  presents  a  basis  on  which  men  may  unite  in 
practical  programs  when  they  could  not  at  all  unite  in 


SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE    141 

theory.  Debates  about  social  orthodoxies  are  just  as 
unprofitable  as  about  theological  orthodoxies.  A  doc- 
trinal debate  about  social  duties  would  simply  further 
divide  the  Church.  Men  have  a  right  to  be  extremely 
sensitive  when  social  conclusions  are  drawn  in  the 
name  of  religion  without  the  most  painstaking  pre- 
liminary study  of  particular  facts.  The  approach 
through  social  knowledge  does  not  preclude  differences 
in  judgment  between  men  of  equally  sincere  and  sen- 
sitive consciences.  Social  workers  are  entirely  accus- 
tomed to  the  spectacle  of  divided  opinion  on  such 
concrete  issues,  say  of  the  wisdom  of  a  widowed 
mothers'  pension  law,  or  the  terms  of  a  workingmen's 
compensation  act.  It  is  just  this  willingness  to  differ 
in  detail,  to  correct  errors  by  experimentation,  and 
to  view  the  whole  matter  in  an  open-minded  and  scien- 
tific rather  than  a  dogmatic  spirit  which  characterizes 
the  current  home  missionary  attitude.  Such  an  atti- 
tude takes  much  of  the  sting  out  of  old  bitterness  and 
has,  for  example,  largely  enabled  the  North  and  South 
to  see  eye  to  eye  and  to  unite  in  common  effort  for 
the  uplift  of  the  Negro. 

An  Ounce  of  Prevention.  The  final  excellency  of 
this  approach  to  social  issues  is  that  it  is  by  its  very 
nature  preventive.  As  seen  in  the  Muscatine  case,  the 
weakness  of  home  missions  was  that  their  ministries 
came  too  late.  Immense  damage  through  social  strife 
had  already  been  suffered.  But  the  most  significant 
of  wars  are  those  which  were  never  fought;  where 
the  issue  and  the  irritant  were  ready,  but  were  over- 


142  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

mastered  by  the  stronger  forces  of  peace  working  out 
thoroughgoing  moral  adjustments  and  profound  hu- 
man reconciliations.  While  home  missions  therefore 
in  their  direct  functioning  cannot  show  frequent  suc- 
cessful mediation  in  industrial  conflicts,  they  are  doing 
something  better.  Their  diffusion  of  the  social  spirit, 
their  advocacy  of  social  adjustments,  their  guidance 
of  the  Church  in  local  courses  of  study,  are  the  precise 
means  which  will  prevent  a  repetition  of  the  Muscatine 
situation. 

The  Local  Survey.  At  the  present  moment,  in  con- 
nection with  the  new  Christian  strategy  both  of  city 
and  of  rural  missions,  large  numbers  of  communities 
are  engaged  in  surveying  their  local  social  conditions. 
Indeed,  the  survey  method  is  in  danger  of  becoming 
the  current  fad;  yet  nothing  would  this  book  more 
earnestly  commend  than  this  very  method.  It  is  the 
essential  first  step  for  an  efficient  local  home  mission- 
ary program.  Nothing  which  is  permanently  wise  or 
significant  can  be  done  without  an  accurate  knowledge 
of  and  the  education  of  the  community  in  its  own 
social  conditions.  One  of  the  largest  services  of  recent 
missionary  scholarship  and  publication  is  that  of  per- 
fecting the  technical  methods  for  making  and  using 
such  surveys,  and  in  this  matter  the  Church  may  be 
proud  of  her  leadership.  The  recent  bulletin  on  the 
Social  Survey  issued  by  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation1 
shows  how  largely  this  general  field  of  social  study  is 

Bulletin  No.  2,  December,  1913. 


SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE    143 

indebted  to  home  missionary  leaders  for  literature  and 
results. 

Justice  through  Social  Control.  Out  of  these 
many  social  studies  and  local  experiments,  and  in 
harmony  with  the  general  social  thought  of  our  age, 
home  missions  are  able  to  formulate  a  constructive 
program  of  social  justice  for  the  Church.  Certain 
agreements  have  emerged  and  established  themselves 
in  the  modern  Christian  conscience.  Their  economic 
background  may  be  variously  stated.  It  does  not  ques- 
tion the  fundamental  rights  of  property — say  in  eggs. 
It  is  recognized  that  there  will  be  a  season  of  fluctua- 
tion in  the  price  of  eggs,  owing  to  the  fact  that  hens 
will  produce  them  more  profusely  in  the  summer  than 
in  the  winter.  There  is  no  disposition  to  forbid  a 
profit  to  the  man  of  intelligence  and  foresight  who 
buys  up  quantities  of  eggs  and  puts  them  in  cold 
storage  against  the  day  of  relative  scarcity.  It  is  in- 
sisted however  that  the  eggs  which  he  sells  out  of 
cold  storage  shall  be  good,  and  that  the  new  resource 
which  has  come  to  humanity  in  the  preservation  of  the 
food  supply  through  refrigeration  shall  in  its  largest 
use  tend  to  equalize  human  advantage  and  not  merely 
to  enrich  those  who  are  able  to  get  possession  of  it. 
In  other  words,  strict  social  control  is  to  be  exercised 
over  all  economic  processes  and  monopoly  advantage 
is  to  be  limited.  Whenever  a  monopoly  advantage 
can  be  shown  to  be  directly  of  social  creation,  as  when 
a  public  franchise  gives  an  exclusive  right  to  a  city 
street,  a  harbor  frontage,  or  an  interstate  railway  line, 


144  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

the  state  is  particularly  bound  to  compel  private  busi- 
ness to  work  out  the  ends  of  social  justice  and  may 
often  find  it  advantageous  directly  to  assume  the  busi- 
ness itself. 

The  Well-being  of  Men  Paramount.  Some  such 
general  tendency  of  economic  thought  undoubtedly 
underlies  the  missionary  program.  Home  missions, 
however,  by  no  means  ask  specific  consent  to  this  or 
any  other  strictly  economic  proposition,  but  are  rather 
directly  concerned  with  the  human  and  moral  aspects 
of  the  social  order.  In  this  realm  their  fundamental 
agreement  is  that  any  specific  exploitation  of  human 
beings,  any  industrial  or  social  condition  which  is 
shown  to  degrade  man,  by  attacking  his  health,  limit- 
ing his  educational  opportunity,  or  subjecting  him  to 
moral  overstrain,  must  cease.  Society  is  not  to  do 
business  at  the  expense  of  any  of  its  members,  but 
only  on  condition  that  all  shall  have  an  opportunity 
for  normal  and  worthy  life. 

A  Social  Creed.  The  specific  convictions  which  ex- 
press this  agreement  and  which  have  been  drawn  out 
of  study  and  experience  have  been  formulated  by 
home  missions  as  the  social  creed  of  the  American 
Churches.  In  their  form  they  are  a  development  from 
a  long  series  of  declarations  by  the  denominations 
and  are  most  perfectly  expressed  in  the  action  of  the 
Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  of  Amer- 
ica, at  the  last  great  quadrennial  gathering  in  Chicago 
in  1912: 

The  Churches  must  stand : 


SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE    145 

1.  For  equal  rights  and  complete  organized  justice 
for  all  men  in  all  stations  of  life. 

2.  For  the  protection  of  the  family,  by  the  single 
standard  of  purity,  uniform  divorce  laws,  proper  reg- 
ulation of  marriage,  and  proper  housing. 

3.  For  the  fullest  possible  development  for  every 
child,  especially  by  the  provision  of  proper  education 
and  recreation. 

4.  For  the  abolition  of  child  labor. 

5.  For  such  regulation  of  the  conditions  of  toil 
for  women  as  shall  safeguard  the  physical  and  moral 
health  of  the  community. 

6.  For  the  abatement  and  prevention  of  poverty. 

7.  For  the  protection  of  the  individual  and  society 
from  the  social,  economic,  and  moral  waste  of  the 
liquor  traffic. 

8.  For  the  conservation  of  health. 

9.  For  the  protection  of  the  worker  from  dan- 
gerous machinery,  occupational  diseases,  and  mortal- 
ity. 

10.  For  the  right  of  all  men  to  the  opportunity  for 
self -maintenance,  for  safeguarding  this  right  against 
encroachments  of  every  kind,  and  for  the  protection 
of  workers  from  the  hardships  of  enforced  unem- 
ployment. 

11.  For  suitable  provision  for  the  old  age  of  the 
workers,  and  for  those  incapacitated  by  injury. 

12.  For  the  right  of  employees  and   employers 
alike  to  organize  for  adequate  means  of  conciliation 
and  arbitration  in  industrial  disputes. 


146  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Staying  Eternally  Teachable.  It  is  worth  while  to 
insist  again  that  even  these  specifications,  which  at 
once  stir  the  heart  and  compel  the  conscience,  are  not 
to  be  regarded  in  the  old  dogmatic  and  strictly  creedal 
sense.  Their  application  is  to  be  worked  out  through 
further  years  of  experimentation  as  to  the  precise 
terms  of  a  given  law  or  regulation  in  the  interests 
of  social  justice.  The  laws  of  one  state  will  not  pre- 
cisely fit  the  conditions  in  another.  Nothing  could 
be  more  abhorrent  to  the  spirit  in  which  missions  ap- 
proach this  matter  than  a  legalistic  tendency  which 
should  array  the  Church  in  the  interest  of  some  par- 
ticular formula  instead  of  keeping  it  eternally  teach- 
able as  to  social  duty.  The  Church  will  reach  a  work- 
ing knowledge  of  the  truth  only  by  persevering  in  the 
task  of  local  adjustment  and  experimentation.  The 
realization  of  social  justice  through  home  missions 
is  largely  in  the  hands  of  agencies  other  than  the 
organized  Church.  Home  missions  are  the  impelling 
and  educating  agencies ;  Christian  men  and  women  are 
the  individual  inspiring  units  of  organization,  but  the 
Church  as  such  is  not  to  be  the  chief  factor  in  the 
securing  of  social  results.  If  Christ  is  really  sovereign 
over  all  the  forces  of  society,  it  is  his  right  to  utilize 
those  best  suited  to  a  particular  end  and  to  hold  the 
Church  in  reserve  when  need  be  for  its  original  task 
of  spiritual  insight  and  moral  impulse. 

No  New  Organization.  Thus  a  typical  declaration 
of  one  of  the  denominational  social  service  commis- 
sions states  explicitly  that  it  does  not  recommend  any 


SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE     147 

new  ecclesiastical  organization  in  the  interests  of  social 
justice.  It  calls  upon  the  Church  everywhere  to  teach 
Christian  ideals  of  social  relationships  and  industrial 
and  community  welfare;  to  study  local  conditions;  to 
make  its  members  good  citizens  and  particularly  to  co- 
operate with  public,  private,  educational,  social,  and  re- 
ligious agencies.  In  other  words,  it  is  in  the  spheres  of 
politics  and  of  voluntary  organization,  rather  than  of 
formal  ecclesiastical  activity,  that  the  hand-to-hand 
work  of  social  justice  is  chiefly  to  be  done.  Thus  in  the 
catalog  of  the  definite  social  ideals  for  which  the 
Churches  must  stand  it  is  evident  that  almost  every 
item  is  a  natural  field  for  legislation  in  the  activity  of 
the  Christianized  state.  The  regulation  of  marriage 
and  divorce;  the  control  of  tenement-house  construc- 
tion and  sanitation ;  the  maintenance  and  adaptation  of 
schools;  regulation  of  child  labor  and  of  factory  con- 
ditions in  general;  conservation  of  health;  compensa- 
tion for  industrial  injuries;  means  for  conciliation  and 
arbitration  in  industrial  disputes,  and  the  definition  of 
a  living  wage  in  given  industries  are  all  ultimately 
matters  for  social  decision  through  legislation;  and 
this  control  must  be  carried  out  into  actual  justice 
through  political  administration. 

Cooperation.  To  get  these  ideals  before  the  public 
conscience  and  to  organize  them  into  compelling  public 
opinion,  state  by  state  and  city  by  city,  manifold  volun- 
tary organizations  are  necessary  with  which  the 
Church  must  heartily  cooperate.  Such  are  local  parent 
and  teachers'  associations  in  the  interests  of  efficient 


148  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

public  schools;  the  national  and  local  Child  Labor 
Committees;  the  Charity  Organization  Societies;  the 
Anti-Saloon  Leagues ;  public  health  organizations ;  the 
Sabbath  Leagues ;  and  always  the  local  boards  of  trade, 
manufacturers'  associations,  and  trade-unions.  Occa- 
sionally the  social  survey  will  find  radical  lacks  which 
must  be  corrected  by  the  creation  of  additional  organi- 
zations. In  the  main  however  there  is  chiefly  needed 
a  perfection  and  yoking  up  of  the  machinery  already 
existing  and  its  agreement  upon  a  common  construc- 
tive program  for  the  community.  When  home  mis- 
sions tell  the  best  of  their  Christian  youth  to  go  out 
and  act  through  these  agencies,  they  do  the  Church 
no  less  honor  than  if  they  organized  a  new  depart- 
ment within  her  own  walls. 

Direct  Social  Ministries.  There  remains  however 
a  very  large  field  for  the  direct  social  functioning  of 
the  Church.  The  local  social  service  program  natur- 
ally varies  as  to  the  needs  of  particular  parishes.  The 
family  church  will  find  its  usefulness  largely  in  estab- 
lishing a  branch  or  social  settlement  in  a  foreign  or 
industrial  quarter  of  the  city.  The  down-town  parish 
may  become  directly  institutional  and  be  itself  used 
by  the  whole  round  of  public  and  voluntary  social 
institutions,  besides  carrying  on  its  own  multifarious 
missions  of  social  betterment.  Home  missions  func- 
tioning as  a  city  church  extension  organization  may 
strongly  direct  the  social  activities  of  aided  churches, 
particularly  those  under  foreign-speaking  pastors. 
They  may  even  find  it  wise  to  label  some  particular 


SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE     149 

church  a  labor  church,  and  to  use  it  as  a  common 
meeting-ground  for  organized  industry  and  religious 
insight.  In  general,  however,  the  fewer  class  labels 
we  attach  to  Christian  institutions  the  better.  For  the 
backward  and  non-European  peoples,  the  national 
home  missionary  boards  will  continue  their  marvelous 
round  of  constructive  social  service,  ranging  from  the 
distribution  of  old  clothes  to  the  organization  of  build- 
ing and  loan  associations ;  the  housing  of  public  libra- 
ries, and  the  reorganization  of  agriculture.  All  these 
forms  of  service  are  in  actual  operation  in  hundreds 
of  communities  throughout  the  nation  under  direct 
home  missionary  impulse,  or  as  the  outgrowth  of  home 
missionary  education  merging  with  the  common  social 
intelligence  of  the  Church. 

Brother  versus  Expert  Especially  important  in  all 
these  efforts  is  the  spirit  which  respects  and  utilizes 
on  terms  of  equality  the  initiative  and  local  leadership 
of  the  people  whom  home  missions  desire  to  help. 
Thus  the  system  of  fraternal  delegates  sent  by  de- 
nominational or  local  church  organizations  to  sit  in 
trade-union  councils  has  put  the  touch  of  personal  con- 
fidence and  intimacy  upon  the  whole  question  of  the 
Church  and  labor.  A  recent  social  survey  in  Morris- 
town,  New  Jersey,  was  raided  and  wrecked  by  a  mob 
of  400  Italians  who  did  not  relish  the  exhibition  of 
their  unfortunate  living  conditions.  It  would  have 
been  far  better  to  have  advised  with  the  leaders  of  the 
Italian  colony  in  advance,  made  them  understand  the 
necessity  of  public  intelligence  as  to  the  lives  of  all  the 


150  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

people  of  the  community,  and  utilized  their  better  im- 
pulses in  the  movement  for  their  own  redemption. 
Human  contact  is  the  fine  secret  of  effectiveness  in 
all  social  service  work,  and  a  fine  regard  for  the  feel- 
ings of  others  will  be  the  Church's  best  equipment  for 
her  expert  and  technical  task. 

The  Church's  Own  Labor  Problem.  Finally  there  is 
the  question  of  the  Church's  own  employees — her 
ministers  and  janitors.  She  cannot  well  instruct  the 
world  in  justice  as  to  wages  and  conditions  of  labor 
until  she  has  more  radically  and  intelligently  consid- 
ered the  minister's  remuneration  and  the  conditions 
under  which  the  paid  servants  of  the  church  are  com- 
pelled to  live,  educate  their  families,  and  do  their 
work.  The  ability  to  secure  high-class  executive  talent 
for  small  pay  has  often  been  pointed  out  as  the  su- 
preme test  of  the  cooperative  movement  in  the  eco- 
nomic field.  This  the  English  cooperators  have  been 
able  to  secure.  Many  of  their  local  managers  could 
draw  immensely  larger  salaries  in  the  world  of  com- 
petitive business  but  choose  rather  to  remain  with  a 
movement  which  stands  for  human  ideals  instead  of 
individual  gain.  In  America  the  Church  is  the  only 
agency  which  has  been  at  all  able  to  command  and 
keep  high-class  men  on  inadequate  pay,  but  she  has 
no  right  to  press  this  advantage  too  far  or  to  glory 
in  it  when  the  real  glory  belongs  to  her  faithful  ser- 
vants. The  Church's  own  labor  problem  needs  im- 
mediate attention. 

Justice  before  Kindness.     Allied  to  this  is  the  prob- 


SOCIAL   KNOWLEDGE   AND   JUSTICE     151 

lem  of  old  age  pensions  for  ministers  and  their  sup- 
port in  disablement.  In  this  matter  the  Church  has 
shown  great  kindness  but  an  inadequate  sense  of  jus- 
tice. Her  aged  ministers  have  been  offered  charity 
when  an  earlier  realization  of  social  justice  would 
have  provided  adequate  systems  of  pensioning  such  as 
are  now  expected  of  all  reasonable  corporations.  It 
is  impossible  that  the  Church  should  lead  the  world 
in  such  matters  until  she  has  set  her  own  house  in 
order. 

The  Church's  Own  Housing  Problem.  The  same 
considerations  apply  to  those  forms  of  social  service 
which  are  directly  carried  on  by  the  Church  collectively 
through  the  missionary  board.  In  her  mission  schools, 
for  example,  the  Church  has  created  her  own  housing 
problem.  Home  missions  have  become  the  voluntary 
landlord  to  Indian,  Negro,  Mountaineer,  Oriental, 
Porto  Rican,  but  have  frequently  housed  them  in  mis- 
sion buildings  and  plants  lacking  the  minimum  re- 
quirements of  collective  safety  and  decency  as  re- 
flected in  modern  legislation.  Indeed  she  has  some- 
times suffered  the  humiliation  of  having  the  state  com- 
pel her  to  provide  decent  safety  and  sanitation  for 
her  wards.  Not  even  in  the  name  of  Christ  is  it  per- 
missible for  two  or  three  hundred  to  be  gathered 
together  without  an  unimpeachable  supply  of  pure 
water,  fire  protection,  adequate  air  and  light,  and  a 
system  of  sewage-disposal  which  reinvigorates  the 
soil  rather  than  contaminates  it.  Yet  in  relatively  few 
of  the  mission  schools  are  these  minimum  requirements 


152  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

met.  The  whole  conception  of  adequate  support  of 
missionary  enterprise  must  be  revolutionized  in  the 
light  of  the  modern  social  conscience.  Immensely 
larger  sums  must  be  contributed  to  missionary  treas- 
uries before  the  Church  can  provide  for  herself  the 
conditions  of  collective  life  which  her  social  justice 
program  demands  of  the  world. 

The  Social  Gospel.  Summing  up,  then,  home  mis- 
sions are  deeply  concerned  with  social  justice  and 
throw  their  strong  and  persistent  weight  into  the 
trembling  balance  of  the  Church's  conscience.  They 
propose  the  method  of  local  and  concrete  attack  upon 
social  problems  based  on  accurate  knowledge,  con- 
fident that  the  ultimate  results  of  this  method  will  be 
exceedingly  radical.  They  discover  a  group  of  agree- 
ments growing  out  of  experience  which  they  have 
expanded  into  a  common  workable  program  of  so- 
cial advance.  Home  missions  attempt  to  achieve  social 
justice  piecemeal,  but  do  not  intend  to  stop  until  the 
work  is  done.  Each  church  and  community  is  set  to 
repairing  the  breaches  in  justice  over  against  its  own 
house,  and  where  there  is  no  house  all  join  together 
to  build  the  wall.  Home  missions  get  their  working 
strength  from  their  alliances.  They  first  set  the 
Church  to  train  Christian  workers,  who  in  turn  or- 
ganize voluntary  agencies  of  social  betterment;  then 
the  Church  utilizes  and  cooperates  with  these  agencies. 
Her  allied  ministers  include  business  men  and  poli- 
ticians. She  views  both  with  a  degree  of  suspicion,  and 
keeps  examining  their  ulterior  motives ;  and  the  Church 


SOCIAL  KNOWLEDGE  AND  JUSTICE    153 

is  just  as  sensitive  about  her  own  ulterior  motives.  She 
keeps  examining  herself  to  see  if  she  is  really  continu- 
ing in  the  social  faith.  Home  missions  direct  the  local 
church  in  its  large  immediate  ministries  of  social  bet- 
terment, but  are  more  fundamentally  concerned  with 
the  duty  of  advocacy  and  education.  They  proclaim 
a  social  gospel  in  which  justice  in  the  collective  life  of 
men  is  regarded,  not  as  a  by-product  of  religion,  but 
as  one  of  the  essential  exercises  of  religion  itself  as 
interpreted  by  Christ.  To  those  who  question  whether 
the  sphere  of  social  religion  is  really  central  in  his 
heart,  they  reply  with  the  old  catalog  of  Messianic  ac- 
tivities, "The  deaf  hear,  the  lame  walk,  and  the  dead 
are  raised  up,  and  the  poor  have  good  tidings  preached 
to  them;  and  blessed  is  he  who  is  not  offended  in  <ne." 


A  SOCIAL  RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE 
PROBLEMS 


CHAPTER    VI 
A    SOCIAL   RESTATEMENT   OF   RACE   PROBLEMS 

Race  Problems  Include  All  Others.  As  affecting  hu- 
man fellowship  in  America  race  problems  have  com- 
monly been  approached  passionately,  and  largely  so 
because  they  have  commonly  been  approached  through 
their  extremest  contrast,  namely,  that  of  the  most  ad- 
vanced white  type  as  over  against  the  lowest  colored 
type.  One  begins  by  staging  mentally  a  drama  of 
conflict  with  these  two  as  hero  and  villain  respectively. 
Its  theme  concerns  their  difficulty  of  association  under 
democratic  conditions.  The  plot  is  complicated  by  the 
fact  that  one  was  recently  the  slave  of  the  other*  The 
result  is  tragedy. 

Common  Conditions  of  Social  Misery.  A  better 
and  more  just  approach,  the  author  submits,  was  dis- 
covered by  him  when  he  arrived  in  a  strange  city  at 
night  in  the  midst  of  a  blinding  winter  storm  and 
sought  to  locate  a  social  settlement  in  a  slum  quarter. 
Regretfully  relinquishing  the  friendly  lights  of  the 
departing  street-car  and  the  solid,  slippery  pavements, 
he  plunged  into  a  maze  of  crooked  and  narrow  side 
streets  with  deep  mud  underfoot  and  the  bewildering 
outlines  of  huddled  dwellings  as  his  guide  to  direction. 
He  knew  that  he  was  in  the  heart  of  a  district  in  which 

'57 


158  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Irish,  Jew,  and  Negro  lived  under  common  conditions 
of  social  depression  and  misery.  Occasionally  silent, 
shadowy  forms  lunged  by,  crouching  against  the  walls 
of  houses  for  protection  from  the  cutting  wind.  In 
the  storm  and  dark  one  was  color-blind  and  felt  only 
the  sudden  presence  of  men  like  himself,  buffeted  by 
the  elements  and  seeking  the  same  light  and  warmth 
he  sought.  And  somehow  in  the  stress  of  common 
struggle  with  the  elements  one  assumed  in  them  a  com- 
mon humanity  which  knew  the  same  inner  gusts  and 
fires  of  passion  and  sought  the  same  desired  haven  of 
the  soul. 

Negro  and  Italian.  What  the  sentiment  of  the  night 
wrought  the  severe,  scientific  survey  of  the  day  reen- 
forced.  Here  was  a  definite,  frequent  social  setting, 
the  most  frequent  one  indeed  in  which  the  social 
problems  of  race  present  themselves  in  the  greatest 
American  cities.  Vast  groups  of  varying  races  on 
the  lowest  economic  level  live  contiguously  in  the 
poorest  quarters  and  suffer  every  social  ill  together. 
Here  in  a  newer  outlying  district  it  is  the  Italian  and 
the  Negro.  Year  before  last  the  place  was  a  swamp. 
Then  it  suddenly  became  dotted  with  cheap  and  patchy 
habitations  standing  in  sodden  pools  of  water.  Now 
the  old  country  road  which  was  its  main  artery  has 
been  partly  paved.  Huge  heaps  of  paving-blocks  and 
a  huddle  of  contractors'  carts  obstruct  it.  Tawdry 
saloons  ornament  every  corner.  The  district  has  filled 
with  houses.  Being  just  without  the  city  limits,  it 
has  neither  sidewalks  nor  sewers,  is  inadequately 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  159 

lighted,  and  has  no  schoolhouse  and  no  permanent 
church.  Under  these  conditions  of  sudden  social  acci- 
dent the  newest  arrivals  from  sunny  Italy  and  the 
sunny  South  are  dumped  together  by  the  overflowing 
city.  Here,  in  the  cheapest,  least  improved,  least  reg- 
ulated area,  they  begin  their  search  for  a  job  and  their 
struggle  for  a  place.  Their  men,  women,  and  children 
have  just  a  life  apiece  to  live,  each  his  own,  and  all 
burdened  with  a  common  social  handicap. 

First  Aid  to  the  Injured.  One  diagnoses  the  first 
needs  of  these  diverse  race-groups  as  identical.  They 
need  to  have  the  building  and  sanitary  codes  extended 
and  to  be  provided  with  the  ordinary  public  facilities 
of  the  city.  If  clean  streets,  ventilated  tenements,  fire 
and  police  protection,  equally  applied  laws,  equal 
schools,  rational  amusement,  and  effective  labor  or- 
ganization can  help  a  group  of  Italians  they  ought 
to  help  an  equal  group  of  Negroes  in  the  next  block ; 
and  they  do.  If  criminals  and  prostitutes  are  herded 
into  the  districts  where  the  poor  must  make  their 
homes,  if  jobs  are  few  and  precarious,  and  the  swamp 
is  allowed  still  to  occupy  the  street,  Italians  and  Ne- 
groes alike  may  become  acute  social  problems;  and 
they  do.  Under  such  circumstances  the  social  con- 
science has  enough  with  which  to  busy  itself  for  some 
time  before  it  gets  to  any  specific  matter  of  race.  The 
first  step  of  civilized  procedure  is  clearly  to  remove 
specific  social  evils. 

Social  Evils  Always  Specific.  From  the  standpoint 
of  the  man  who  is  going  to  do  something  about  the 


160  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

matter  the  so-called  inferior  races  in  America  are  pri- 
marily victims  of  a  peculiar  social  status  coupled  with 
the  experience  of  specific  social  evils.  With  large  num- 
bers of  the  white  race  of  like  status  they  suffer  com- 
mon difficulties  and  are  subject  to  like  remedies.  All 
the  urban  perplexities  and  wrongs  which  earlier  chap- 
ters of  this  book  discuss — crowding,  bad  housing,  in- 
adequate sanitation,  compulsory  association  with  the 
depraved,  inferior  economic  opportunity — beset,  some- 
what unequally  to  be  sure,  the  urban  Negro,  Jew, 
Oriental,  or  European  immigrant.  All  the  factors 
which  figure  in  the  decay  of  rural  civilization  war 
against  the  inferior  race  in  the  open  country.  The 
Indian,  rural  Negro,  Mexican,  Porto  Rican,  or  Orien- 
tal needs  all  that  other  country  people  need  and  more. 
All  social  resources,  all  social  compassion  and  wrath 
ought  to  be  equally  available  on  their  behalf. 

Reducing  the  Problem's  Dimensions.  Reform  this 
and  that  specific  abuse  and  the  race  problem  shrinks 
in  size;  reform  them  all  and  it  largely  evaporates. 
Race  difficulties  are  nearly  always  simply  common 
forms  of  social  difficulties,  the  hopeful  remedies  to 
which  are  perfectly  well  known  and  agreed  upon.  This 
aspect  of  them  should  be  dealt  with  first.  Race,  the 
sociologists  warn  us,  can  no  longer  be  used  as  a  jug- 
gler's hat  from  which  to  draw  theoretical  explanations 
of  social  difference  when  concrete  explanations  are 
right  at  hand.  "More  and  more,"  says  Ross,  "the 
time-honored  appeal  to  race  is  looked  upon  as  the 
resource  of  ignorance  or  indolence.  To  the  scholar 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  161 

the  attributing  of  the  mental  and  moral  traits  of  a 
population  to  heredity  is  a  confession  of  defeat,  not 
to  be  thought  of  until  he  has  wrung  from  every  factor 
of  life  its  last  drop  of  explanation."1  Note  the  order 
of  explanation;  for  this  is  the  kernel  of  the  thought. 
We  are  to  cry  "race"  last  of  all,  after  we  have  reck- 
oned with  every  other  factor,  every  nearer  and  more 
obvious  cause.  Then  if  there  is  something  left,  say 
of  the  Negro's  deficiency,  which  belongs  to  him  as  a 
Negro,  one  must  confess  it ;  but  not  until  from  every 
social  factor  has  been  wrung  its  last  drop  of  signifi- 
cance, and  till  every  known  duty,  based  upon  his  spe- 
cific social  handicaps,  has  been  performed  toward  him. 
Colored  Americans:  The  Negro.  It  is  from  this 
view-point  that  home  missions  as  socially  redirected 
now  approach  the  non-European  race  material  of  the 
United  States ;  first  to  catalog,  to  locate,  and  briefly  to 
characterize  it.  One  American  in  every  ten  is  black. 
Ten  millions  of  Negroes,  recently  enslaved,  now  suf- 
fering every  ill  of  a  socially  depressed  group,  are 
massed  chiefly  in  the  rural  sections  of  the  South  but 
stream  increasingly  toward  the  Northern  cities.  They 
absolutely  outnumber  the  white  population  in  South 
Carolina  and  Mississippi  and  have  gained  more  rapidly 
than  the  whites  during  the  last  census  decade  in  West 
Virginia,  Arkansas,  and  Oklahoma.  No  man  can  deny 
that  the  Negro  is  below  the  nation's  average  in  health, 
wealth,  education,  civic  intelligence,  and  civilized  mor- 
ality. Yet  his  rich  capacity  for  improvement  has  been 

1  Foundations  of  Sociology,  309. 


162  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

demonstrated  at  ten  thousand  points.  He  is  vastly 
increasing  in  numbers,  homes,  ownership  of  land,  and 
variety  of  successful  occupation.  He  is  multiplying 
his  farmers  twice  as  fast  as  the  white  population  is, 
and  his  strength  and  gains  as  an  agricultural  producer 
and  proprietor  are  notable.  He  has  reduced  his  illit- 
eracy 14  per  cent,  in  the  last  ten  years  and  made  im- 
measurable gains  in  racial  self-respect,  initiative,  and 
moral  control.  Judged  by  the  ratio  of  his  churches 
and  ministers  he  is  the  most  religious  of  all  Americans. 
The  Indian.  Arriving  almost  contemporaneously, 
the  Pilgrim  Father  and  the  African  slave  found  the 
continent  thinly  possessed  by  barbarian  primeval 
Americans  of  whom  three  hundred  thousand — a 
slightly  increasing  rather  than  a  dwindling  number — 
abide  with  us  still.  Now  almost  everywhere  engulfed 
by  white  civilization,  pressed  from  decreasing  reserva- 
tions on  to  small  individual  holdings — and  these  fre- 
quently in  semi-arid  regions  where  whites  can  farm 
with  difficulty — the  Indian  is  obliged  to  make  his  tran- 
sition from  savagery  to  civilization  under  enormous 
handicaps.  He  must  abandon  tribal  life  under  the 
benevolent  paternalism  of  the  government,  and  face 
the  problems  of  living  and  a  job.  His  deeply  en- 
trenched traditions  are  desperately  at  outs  with  Amer- 
ican notions.  Individual  ownership  is  alien  to  his  pro- 
foundest  sense  of  the  meaning  of  property.  Individual 
responsibility  is  all  to  learn.  Greed  and  graft  menace 
him ;  red  tape  hinders.  Whisky,  trachoma,  and  tuber- 
culosis undermine  his  physical  manhood.  He  is  the 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  163 

victim  of  the  unearned  increment  of  land  values,  an 
idle  rich  man  without  adequate  incentive  to  industry; 
yet  in  spite  of  his  millions  and  Uncle  Sam's,  fourteen 
thousand  of  his  children  remain  out  of  school. 

The  Eskimo.  Clinging  to  our  Arctic  coasts,  strug- 
gling for  existence  under  the  severest  climatic  and 
economic  conditions  known  to  the  human  family,  live 
the  Eskimo,  a  sound,  stocky,  cheerful,  democratic  race 
of  fishers  and  hunters,  organized  only  into  fragmentary 
village  groups.  Their  snow  houses,  fur  clothing, 
weapons,  lamp,  sledge,  and  canoe  show  marvelous  me- 
chanical ingenuity  and  artistic  instincts.  White  civili- 
zation has  brought  them  employment,  schools,  and  the 
reindeer;  also  liquor,  disease,  and  the  lust  for  gold. 
Missions  must  counteract  these  by  morality,  sanitation, 
and  intelligent  faith. 

The  Chinese.  More  than  half  way  to  meet  the  west- 
ward movement  of  the  European  races  across  our  con- 
tinent, came  Chinese  pilgrims  of  poverty — a  few  hun- 
dreds of  thousands — from  beyond  the  Pacific.  They 
built  the  first  railroad  which  linked  our  two  oceans; 
they  performed  the  heavy  frontier  tasks  of  the  mine 
and  the  ranch  and  the  drudgery  of  the  kitchen.  Feared, 
abused,  and  excluded  as  cheap  labor,  they  have  dwin- 
dled now  to  only  about  seventy  thousand,  one  half 
of  whom  are  massed  in  California.  One  third  of 
them  are  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits;  another 
third  in  trade  and  industry ;  only  incidentally  are  they 
laundrymen.  Chiefly  they  are  enterprising,  hard- 
working, and  literate  Cantonese.  Among  them  are 


164  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

great  merchants;  not  a  few  are  well-to-do.  So  long 
as  they  were  an  ill-housed,  not-yet-adjusted  immigrant 
group,  sharing  the  same  quarters  with  criminals  and 
prostitutes,  they  showed  excessive  immorality.  For  a 
long  time  the  Chinese  in  America  was  typically  without 
a  wife  and  without  a  God.  He  had  left  both  his  family 
and  his  faith  beyond  the  seas.  Now,  however,  in  the 
Christian  communities  are  scores  of  fine  and  stable 
families,  hundreds  of  children  born  under  the  Stars 
and  Stripes,  and  intending  to  stay  there,  and  a  per- 
manently organized  group  life  which,  while  little  as- 
similated to  American  ways,  is  not  without  increas- 
ingly adequate  social  standards  and  agencies  of  its 
own.  And  while  their  contribution  to  America  is  yet 
but  slight,  these  Christian  communities  have  had  a 
vast  influence  on  their  former  homeland.  New  China 
owes  much  to  them  both  in  ideals,  benevolent  contri- 
butions, and  men. 

The  Hindu.  One  of  the  latest  wrinkles  in  Oriental 
exclusion,  aimed  chiefly  at  the  Japanese,  proposed  to 
keep  out  all  peoples  not  tall  enough  to  get  into  the 
United  States  army.  But  this  would  be  more  than 
half  an  invitation  to  the  tall  and  turbaned  Hindu,  him- 
self frequently  an  ex-soldier  of  Great  Britain.  Some 
6,000  only  have  been  admitted  to  our  shores.  These 
constitute  an  insignificant  though  interesting  addition 
to  the  variety  of  our  non-European  elements,  impor- 
tant only  because  the  surplus  millions  of  India  have 
to  be  reckoned  with  somewhere  if  not  here.  They 
simply  testify  within  our  gates  to  a  world-wide  re- 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  165 

sponsibility  in  which  home  missions  and  foreign  mis- 
sions are  one. 

The  Japanese.  There  are  Japanese  in  America  to 
the  number  of  seventy-one  thousand  only.  Ninety-five 
per  cent,  of  them  are  confined  to  the  Pacific  Coast 
states.  They  tend  rather  to  scatter  among  the  general 
population  than  to  create  distinctive  quarters,  and  they 
uniformly  adopt  American  customs  of  dress  and  hous- 
ing. As  rural  laborers  they  are  the  chief  factor  in 
much  of  the  distinctive  agriculture  of  the  Coast  states. 
Emigration  is  now  voluntarily  restricted  by  the  Jap- 
anese government  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
it  can  be  permanently  controlled  without  friction  be- 
tween the  two  nations,  if  the  status  of  the  Japanese 
now  in  America  can  be  satisfactorily  adjusted.  Quick 
to  learn  English,  literate  almost  to  a  ma.n,  great  read- 
ers, keenly  intelligent  on  civic  affairs,  the  Japanese 
propose  to  have  something  to  say  about  this  adjust- 
ment. They  have  strong  and  educated  leaders,  an 
active  press,  and  the  means  of  focusing  group  senti- 
ment Their  Buddhism,  with  5,000  enrolled  adherents, 
is  aggressive  and  adaptive,  imitating  modern  Christian 
organizations  and  activities.  Their  racial  sensitiveness 
and  capacity  for  initiative  combine  also  to  turn  their 
Christian  activities  largely  into  self-directed  lines. 
Interdenominational  evangelism,  federated  churches, 
close  cooperation  between  the  several  communions,  and 
the  production  of  Christian  literature  all  thrive  in 
their  hands.  While  numerically  insignificant — so  that 
all  the  Japanese  in  America  could  be  poured  into  New 


i66  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

York  City  and  scarcely  any  one  be  the  wiser — their 
massing  in  thinly  settled  states,  their  temperamental 
aggressiveness,  successful  competition  with  American 
interests,  and  their  membership  in  a  mighty  and  highly 
self-conscious  nation,  make  them,  above  all  non- 
European  groups  in  America,  most  significant  for  in- 
ternational weal  or  wo. 

The  Hawaiian.  The  beautiful  and  immensely  fer- 
tile Hawaiian  Islands  form  the  home  of  a  scant 
200,000  of  population  incredibly  mingled  in  race  and 
blood.  They  were  the  scene  of  one  of  the  earlier 
triumphs  of  foreign  missions  which  first  completely 
Christianized  a  pagan  people.  Now  upon  the  soil 
of  Hawaii  as  part  of  our  own  nation,  the  battle  for 
civilization  and  Christianity  has  to  be  fought  all  over 
again  by  reason  of  the  inpouring  Oriental  races.  Jap- 
anese furnish  the  largest  racial  element,  and  with 
Chinese  constitute  over  a  half  of  the  population.  The 
dominant  religion  of  the  Islands  is  Buddhism;  the 
dominant  form  of  Christianity,  Mormonism.  The 
small  but  wealthy  white  population,  led  by  sons  of  the 
early  missionaries,  with  one  hand  exploits  the  labor 
of  these  thronging  aliens  and  with  the  other  actively 
and  handsomely  sustains  the  institutions  of  philan- 
thropy and  education,  encouraged  by  the  fellowship 
and  gifts  of  the  homeland  churches. 

The  Mexican.  Along  our  southwestern  border 
from  California  to  Texas,  on  former  Mexican  soil,  live 
perhaps  three  quarters  of  a  million  Americans  of  Mex- 
ican race.  Their  Spanish  fathers  came  before  our 


YOUNG   MEN   OF  A  JAPANESE   MISSION 
PORTLAND,  OREGON 


Pilgrim  Fathers  came.  No  one  knows  with  accuracy 
what  racial  blend  the  present  generations  represent, 
though  competent  observers  guess  them  to  be  one  fifth 
Spanish,  two  fifths  Indian,  and  two  fifths  mixed,  al- 
ways with  a  dash  of  Negro  blood.  At  any  rate  the 
effective  result  is  non-European  in  trait  and  tendency. 
As  lonely  cattlemen  and  ranchers  in  empty  deserts,  as 
teamster  and  laborer  on  railway  construction  and  irri- 
gation projects,  as  miner,  fruit  grower,  and  packer, 
the  Mexican  lives  and  labors.  His  latest  recruits  are 
miserable  refugees  from  revolution  across  the  border. 
He  is  a  bigoted  Catholic,  the  victim  of  a  stationary 
half -civilization.  Yet  he  does  not  lack  shrewd  politi- 
cal leaders,  nor  rich  landholders;  nor  promising 
youths,  whose  training  in  mission  school  and  agricul- 
tural college  is  the  best  hope  of  a  better  day. 

The  Porto  Rican.  In  the  West  Indian  world,  as  in 
the  whole  of  continental  America  south  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  we  are  neighbors  to  a  mixed  racial  breed, 
which  verges  away  from  the  European  type.  Under 
the  flags,  first  or  last,  of  the  chief  European  powers, 
for  four  hundred  years  the  West  Indies  have  been 
becoming  more  and  more  Negro.  And  strangely 
enough  those  Islands  which  have  been  and  remained 
most  European  have  been  just  the  former  possessions 
of  poor,  decrepit,  much-belabored  Spain,  who  never- 
theless was  the  most  genuine  colonizer  of  them  all. 
Even  in  them,  however,  the  resultant  racial  blend  is 
distinctly  non-European.  One  of  these  Islands  has 
fallen  to  us.  Of  blood  so  mixed  that  the  census  has 


168  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

given  over  the  attempt  to  distinguish  black  from 
white,  and  of  civilization  so  one  that  black  and  white 
think,  feel,  and  act  alike,  Porto  Rico  adds  her  million 
and  more  of  souls  to  our  deeply  sundered  human  stuff. 
The  economic  efficiency  of  the  entire  Island  is  said 
to  be  cut  in  half  by  the  hookworm  disease  alone.  The 
decrepit  and  bigoted  Romanism  of  four  centuries 
failed  to  bless  if  it  did  not  curse  the  people.  American 
rule  has  added  population,  preserved  order,  furnished 
capital  and  initiative  for  industry,  planted  two  thou- 
sand schools,  fought  disease,  and  is  valued  for  its 
results  but  not  loved.  Self-government,  native  initia- 
tive, democracy,  thrift,  loyalty,  and  the  effective  carry- 
ing of  civilization  into  the  lives  and  homes  of  the 
masses  largely  wait  upon  the  living  fellowships  of 
Christian  missions. 

Numerical  Summary.  Totaling  the  entire  group  of 
important  non-European  populations  in  the  United 
States  one  gets,  in  approximate  numbers,  the  follow- 
ing result: 

Negroes    10,000,000 

Indians    300,000 

Orientals   150,000 

Hawaiians    200,000 

Mexicans    750,000 

Porto  Ricans  1,100,000 


Total    12,500,000 

This  twelve  and  a  half  million  constitutes  one  eighth 
of  our   people;    and   the    eighth    upon   which    more 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  169 

heavily  than  on  any  other  social  pressure  rests.  Upon 
them,  first  and  last,  all  the  social  evils  focus.  And,  as 
the  chapter  began  by  saying,  there  is  an  overwhelming 
mass  of  remediable  wrong  to  which  we  know  the 
remedy,  which  must  be  righted  before  there  is  any 
justice  in  invoking  specific  race  factors  in  the  problem. 

The  National  Attitude  toward  Race.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  it  must  be  confessed,  almost  nobody  takes 
that  attitude.  On  the  contrary,  the  non-European 
eighth  of  our  people  is  marked  by  our  minds  in  ad- 
vance for  particular  hopelessness.  We  have  nearly  as 
many  actual  European-born  foreigners  within  our 
borders  as  the  total  population  which  is  non-European 
in  origin.  Yet  unquestionably  we  regard  their  dilu- 
tion of  our  blood  and  institutions  as  less  ominous  than 
that  of  our  darker  brethren.  What  is  this  twelve  and  a 
half  million  more  than  another  twelve  and  a  half 
million? 

Discrimination  between  Europeans.  The  broadest 
ground  for  an  answer  is  doubtless  in  the  fact  that  we 
instinctively  discriminate  also  within  the  European 
immigrant  population.  What  is  the  five  million  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  more  than  the  nearly 
seven  million  from  Northwestern  Europe?  The  best 
one  can  say  is  that  we  are  inwardly  aware  of  a  greater 
separation  from  the  Southeastern  European.  There 
is  a  feeble  consciousness  of  kind  with  respect  to  him 
and  a  profounder  consciousness  of  difference.  He  is 
nearer  to  Asia  and  to  Africa  than  we  are  or  our 
fathers  were.  Mixing  with  the  aboriginal  peoples  he 


170  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

has  covered  one  of  the  two  American  continents  and 
the  other  as  far  as  the  Rio  Grande  with  a  hybrid 
stock.  His  is  an  intermediate,  buffer  breed  which 
makes,  we  think,  a  fundamental  difference  in  the  char- 
acter of  our  population. 

The  Color  Line.  Remoter  still  from  us,  as  meas- 
ured by  our  feelings,  is  the  colored  man,  whose  case 
we  have  been  considering.  His  initial  needs,  we  ad- 
mit, may  be  the  same  as  those  of  any  other  of  like 
social  status ;  but  his  final  needs  must  lie  deeper.  There 
is  a  residual  something,  we  are  sure,  which  makes 
the  problem  of  race  more  than  a  matter  of  social  ad- 
justment. So  we  incline  to  amend  our  formula  to 
read:  race  problems  include  all  others,  but  they  also 
exceed  all  others.  The  precise  meaning  of  this  dis- 
tinction comes  home  one  day  to  the  leader  of  a  settle- 
ment club  including  Negro  and  Italian  boys  in  a  New 
York  suburb.  This  very  little  Sandro,  she  reflects, 
should  he  turn  out  to  be  a  successful  artist,  engineer, 
or  merely  a  rich  man,  might  live  in  a  house  on  Upper 
Mountain  Avenue  and  belong  to  the  Montclair  Golf 
Club,  a  thing  not  conceivably  possible  for  Sam  how- 
ever talented  or  rich  he  might  become.  In  a  single 
lifetime  the  Italian  might  compass  the  whole  range 
of  social  achievement;  but,  as  most  Americans  feel, 
generations  of  Negroes  cannot  do  it. 

A  Depressing  Social  Atmosphere.  As  a  matter  of 
course,  therefore,  social  effort  proceeds  with  less  hope- 
fulness for  the  non-European  peoples  even  when  pre- 
sented side  by  side  with  depressed  Europeans  of  the 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  171 

same  social  stratum.  There  is  no  doubt  about  their 
race  handicap  which  lies  in  us.  We  feel  differently 
about  them,  knowing  that  they  will  encounter  special 
difficulties — our  little  faith  being  one  of  them — and 
suspecting  that  they  will  exhibit  less  initiative  and 
resistance  under  them.  It  weakens  our  efforts, 
saps  our  faith,  limits  our  patience,  undermines  our 
strength.  On  the  one  hand  we  are  victims  of  a  social 
heredity  which  forbids  us  to  be  scientific  in  race  mat- 
ters, and  which  makes  it  almost  impossible  for  us  to 
do  the  best  which  might  be  done  with  the  material  at 
hand.  On  the  other  hand  our  thought  of  them  is  a 
depressing  atmosphere  for  the  "lower"  races  to  live 
in.  It  affects  their  response.  Knowing  our  little 
faith  in  them,  they  tend  to  have  little  faith  in  them- 
selves. Their  social  heredity  was  largely  made  by  us. 
It  restricts  and  depresses  their  capacities  and  ener- 
gies, and  they  are  the  victims  of  it. 

The  Issue  Not  Equality  but  Capacity.  For  the  sal- 
vation of  both  of  us,  therefore,  it  is  important  to  know 
what  the  best  social  knowledge  has  to  say  about  the 
ultimate  and  irreducible  significance  of  race,  if  there 
is  any,  which  must  persist  as  a  barrier  to  human  fel- 
lowship, no  matter  what  we  hope  or  can  do.  About 
equality  we  have  no  time  to  waste.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  equality  between  individuals;  how  then  can 
there  be  between  groups  composed  of  individuals  such 
as  the  sexes,  the  races,  or  the  nations?  Equality  is 
not  only  impossible  but  unnecessary.  We  do  know 


172  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

a  certain  horrid  equality  among  the  dregs  of  mankind. 
It  has  been  said  that  "the  bottom  of  hell  is  level." 
What  is  important  for  us  to  know,  however,  is  whether 
in  natural  capacity  the  sound  cores  of  the  various 
races  overlap  in  their  larger  areas,  so  that  they  might 
bring  substantially  equal  brawn  and  intelligence  to 
common  tasks  and  might  find,  in  a  well-rounded  civili- 
zation, honorable  and  normally  rewarded  places  for 
the  special  gifts  of  each;  also  whether  each  can  fur- 
nish a  proportionate  number  of  leaders  able  to  meet 
one  another  on  common  ground. 

The  Case  of  the  Negro.  So  far,  this  chapter  has 
endeavored  to  avoid  that  chief  specific  bone  of  racial 
contention  in  America,  the  Negro  problem,  and  to  keep 
discussion  on  the  broadest  grounds.  Humanly  speak- 
ing, the  Negro  problem  is  not  the  chief  race  problem. 
On  account  of  his  greatly  inferior  numbers  the  Negro 
will  figure  relatively  little  in  the  ultimate  human  out- 
come. The  Armageddon  of  race,  if  there  is  to  be  one, 
will  be  fought  between  the  white  and  yellow  races. 
Our  nearer  American  race  problem,  however,  does 
chiefly  concern  the  Negro.  Its  specific  issue  is  whether 
he  has  capacity  to  associate  with  us  on  democratic 
terms  in  the  significant  things  which  belong  to  Amer- 
icans. Settling  this  issue  for  him  settles  it  for  all 
the  darker-skinned  races. 

Practical  Common  Ground.  In  this  matter  it 
seems  wise  to  the  author  to  present  ground  for  others 
to  stand  on  which  is  distinctly  lower  than  his  per- 
sonal understanding  and  conviction.  It  is  high  enough, 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  173 

however,  from  which  to  reach  great  social  conclusions. 
Professor  William  S.  Sutton  of  the  University  of 
Texas  has  written  a  pamphlet  on  the  Education  of 
the  Southern  Negro  which  is  issued  by  the  University 
as  official  Bulletin  No.  221.  Discussing  the  signifi- 
cance of  ultimate  racial  factors  in  humanity,  Professor 
Sutton  says:  "How  far  training  can  modify  and 
overcome  original  mental  characteristic  nobody  has 
yet  determined.  Boas,  in  his  work  entitled  The  Mind 
of  Primitive  Man,  published  this  year,  devotes  a  chap- 
ter to  race  problems  in  the  United  States.  Concern- 
ing the  question,  how  far  undesirable  traits  now  found 
in  the  Negro  population  are  due  to  racial  influences, 
and  how  far  they  are  due  to  social  environment  for 
which  that  population  is  not  accountable,  he  reaches 
this  conclusion : 

Verdict  of  Anthropology.  "  'To  this  question  an- 
thropology can  give  the  decided  answer  that  the  traits 
of  African  culture  as  observed  in  the  aboriginal  home 
of  the  Negro  are  those  of  a  healthy,  primitive  people, 
with  a  considerable  degree  of  personal  initiative,  with 
a  talent  for  organization,  and  with  imaginative  power, 
with  technical  skill  and  thrift.  Neither  is  a  warlike 
spirit  absent  in  the  race,  as  proved  by  the  mighty  con- 
querors who  overthrew  states  and  founded  new  em- 
pires, and  by  the  courage  of  the  armies  that  follow  the 
bidding  of  their  leaders.  There  is  nothing  to  prove 
that  licentiousness,  shiftless  laziness,  lack  of  initiative, 
are  fundamental  characteristics  of  the  race.  Every- 
thing points  out  that  these  qualities  are  the  result  of 


174  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

social  conditions,  rather  than  of  hereditary  traits.' 
He  remarks,  with  emphasis,  however,  that  it  would 
be  altogether  a  fallacious  view  to  assume  that  there 
are  no  differences  in  the  make-up  of  the  Negro  race 
and  other  races,  and  that  their  activities  should  run 
in  the  same  line.  Whatever  determination  shall  finally 
be  reached  concerning  the  respective  values  of  racial 
inheritance  or  modification  by  environment,  however 
well-founded  may  be  certain  racial  instincts,  it  seems 
clear  that,  in  the  education  of  the  Negro,  he  should 
be  granted  every  reasonable  opportunity  to  make  all 
the  advancement  of  which  he  is  capable.  To  deny  him 
such  opportunity  is  unkind,  undemocratic,  and  un- 
safe." » 

General  Conclusion  of  Professor  Boas.  Professor 
Boas,  summarizing  his  own  conclusions,  finds  that  "no 
proof  of  the  inferiority  of  the  Negro  type  could  be 
given  except  that  it  seemed  quite  possible  that  per- 
haps the  race  would  not  produce  quite  so  many  men 
of  the  highest  genius  as  other  races;  while  there 
was  nothing  at  all  that  could  be  interpreted  as  sug- 
gesting any  material  difference  in  the  mental  capacity 
of  the  bulk  of  the  Negro  population  as  compared  with 
the  bulk  of  the  white  population."  2  He  therefore 
pushes  his  logic  further  than  Professor  Sutton  does 
and  judges  that  with  opportunity  the  Negro  will  be- 
come fully  equal  to  citizenship.3 

1  Sutton,  "Education  of  the  Southern  Negro,"  13,  14. 
*  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,  268. 
*Ibid.,  272. 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  175 

Irreducible  Minimum  of  Missions.  For  the  practi- 
cal purposes  of  the  missionary  outlook  it  will  be 
enough  to  agree  that  any  racial  factor  underlying  so- 
cial difficulties  and  evils  will  be  found  capable  of  modi- 
fication in  the  direction  of  greater  equality.  It  may 
be  stubborn;  it  cannot  be  implacable.  There  is  much 
at  any  rate  that  we  can  do  besides  removing  evil  con- 
ditions. We  can  modify  nature  so  far  as  change  of 
environment  can  affect  it.  We  have  gone  nowhere 
near  the  limit  of  profitable  effort.  Fundamental  social 
improvement  at  the  worst  is  only  checked,  not  pre- 
vented, by  ultimate  racial  factors.  If  any  race  can 
radically  better  itself,  all  can.  As  concerns  the  darker- 
skinned  races  in  the  United  States,  home  missions  are 
the  attempt  of  the  Church  to  do  all  that  can  be  done 
for  each  and  every  one  through  the  total  resources  of 
Christianity  and  civilization. 

Missionary  Education.  The  most  outstanding  mis- 
sionary service  which  the  Church  has  undertaken  for 
our  incomplete  Americans  of  non-European  origin  is 
education.  So  deficient  are  they  that  education  must 
precede  most  of  the  organized  activities  of  the  Church 
itself.  So  needy  are  they  and  at  so  many  points  that 
education  must  include  manifold  forms  of  social  bet- 
terment activities,  and  be  brought  to  bear  on  every 
social  problem.  So  vast  are  their  numbers  and  so 
acute  their  needs  that  all  the  splendid  and  increasingly 
available  schools  of  the  states  and  of  the  federal  gov- 
ernment must  still  be  mightily  supplemented  by  the 
Church.  With  rising  standards  of  living  in  the  people 


i;6  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

whom  she  has  lifted  up,  her  ill-supported  schools  have 
come  into  newly  difficult  responsibility  and  sharp 
struggle  to  maintain  the  quality  of  their  service.  They 
are  not  carpet-bagging  institutions.  They  were  planted 
to  stay ;  and  stay  they  must. 

The  Right  Policy.  But  we  speak  of  education 
now  in  the  broadest  sense  as  deliberate  social  direc- 
tion. "Through  education,"  says  Dewey,  "society  can 
formulate  its  own  purposes,  can  organize  its  own 
means  and  resources,  and  thus  shape  itself  with  defi- 
niteness  and  economy  in  the  direction  in  which  it 
wishes  to  move."1  Educational  policy  best  tells  in 
what  direction  a  nation  wishes  to  move,  and  to  move 
with  its  most  depressed  and  alien  elements.  And  mis- 
sionary education  should  indicate  what  the  Church  be- 
lieves to  be  the  Christian  direction  of  national  tendency 
for  and  with  the  belated  races. 

A  Cubit  Added  to  Stature.  Conscious  of  its  chal- 
lenging power  and  responsibility  missionary  educa- 
tion for  the  non-European  populations  has  actually 
shown  two  phases :  first,  it  has  dealt  with  the  deter- 
mination of  racial  outlook  and  the  discovery  of  racial 
capacity.  It  has  been  a  hopeful  adventure  beyond  the 
horizon  of  their  proved  powers  in  the  direction  of  the 
ampler  men  they  were  believed  to  be.  And  if  the 
analysis  of  our  former  paragraph  is  right  this  is  both 
noble  and  scientific.  If  the  powers  of  the  "lower" 
races  are  stunted  by  our  little  faith  in  them  they 
should  be  enlarged  when  our  faith  increases.  When 

lMy  Pedagogical  Creed,  17. 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS    177 

One  ascended  on  high,  he  "led  captivity  captive,  and 
gave  gifts  unto  men."  One  of  his  gifts  is  that  of 
making  a  lesser  man  greater  than  he  was  by  the  ex- 
pectancy and  daring  of  fellowship. 

"And  there  was  that  about  his  eye 
That  none  might  see  and  crouch " 

His  dominant  word  was,  "Man,  stand  up,"  and  men 
stood  up — for  him.  Who  would  not  like  to  be  such 
a  man? 

"Oh,  tender  dreamer  of  a  generous  dream 
Who  didst  believe  so  surely  in  our  soul, 
That  ever  since,  our  soul,  and  evermore, 
Affirms,  defines  itself " 

Who  would  not  wish  remotely  to  help  on  such  effects? 
A  Contrasting  Ideal.  Quite  another  program  of 
racial  education  for  the  colored  peoples  has  been  com- 
monly and  influentially  held.  Their  education  is  to  be 
vocational,  with  no  expectation  that  they  will  ever 
want  to  enlarge  their  vocations.  It  is  conceived  as 
merely  a  tool  for  use  in  present  status,  not  as  a  key 
to  wider  possibilities.  It  is  a  splendid  idea  that  edu- 
cation should  prepare  men  frankly  for  the  concrete 
probabilities  of  their  life,  but  a  vicious  one  when  prob- 
abilities are  limited  by  narrow  expectation.  Whoever 
believes  that  there  are  fatally  "lower"  and  inferior 
races  will  lack  faith  to  try  those  broad  incentives  which 
are  the  soul  of  the  educational  method  of  home  mis- 
sions. 


178  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Leadership  Primary.  Now,  if  in  ultimate  issues 
the  soul  is  greater  than  the  body,  the  primal  need  of 
any  group  in  a  fundamental,  character-molding  strug- 
gle out  from  under  social  depression  is  not  to  be  ad- 
justed to  the  immediately  practical  demands  of  their 
lives,  nor  to  be  fitted  in  the  shortest  possible  time  for 
making  a  living.  It  is  rather  to  extend  the  boundaries 
of  experience  and  achievement  within  which  prac- 
tical demands  may  grow.  In  short,  it  must  have  lead- 
ers whose  gains  become  the  ideal  capital  of  the  strug- 
gling masses.  It  must  have  its  energized  examples, 
its  standard-bearers,  its  men  of  whom  millions  will 
say,  "I  can  because  he  has."  Such  leadership  is  the 
chief  human  value  of  Jesus  Christ  to  this  world.  And 
in  the  largest  social  interpretations  of  education  noth- 
ing could  be  sounder  than  the  enthusiastic  quest  and 
joyful  discovery  by  the  mission  school  of  the  excep- 
tional man  who  should  show  by  his  own  life  what 
other  men  can  do,  and  thus  lead  his  people  out  of  the 
wilderness. 

Release  of  Suppressed  Capacity.  A  just  educa- 
tional policy,  then,  for  either  Church  or  nation,  toward 
any  group  which  has  recently  suffered,  or  is  suffering 
from  social  repression,  must  seek  to  find  adjustment, 
not  to  its  present  fragmentary  and  distorted  manifes- 
tations of  natural  capacities  and  traits,  but  to  its  future 
completely  emancipated  mind  and  genius.  The  im- 
mediate task  of  education  with  respect  to  such  a  group 
must  be  to  rouse  and  discover  that  suppressed  capac- 
ity. First  find  your  man.  This  should  be  the  imme- 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  179 

diate  business  of  education;  for  lack  of  it  any  policy 
toward  him  is  sure  to  blunder.  "What  a  thing  is  when 
its  becoming  is  completed,  that  we  call  the  nature  of  a 
thing,"  said  Aristotle.  Because  strong  sentiment  in 
the  nation  persistently  urges  a  type  of  training  which 
would  fix  the  Negro  and  his  dark-skinned  fellows  in 
their  incompleteness,  let  the  educator,  patriot,  anthro- 
pologist each  beware.  This  is  the  crux  of  the  prob- 
lem. 

The  Masses.  The  leaders  being  found  and  their 
capacities  proved,  the  door  being  faithfully  held  wide 
open  to  possibilities,  missionary  education  under  social 
redirection  has  experienced  a  certain  return  to  prob- 
abilities. It  is  now  attempting  to  adapt  its  education 
more  democratically  toward  meeting  the  prospects  of 
the  masses.  Perhaps  the  author's  chief  personal  con- 
tribution to  home  missions  has  been  the  partial  work- 
ing out  of  such  redirection  in  a  large  group  of  schools 
for  non-European  populations.  Elsewhere  he  has  for- 
mulated the  principles  of  such  an  adaptation  as  fol- 
lows: "A  wise  democracy  will  not  offer  its  masses 
merely  the  schools  of  the  professional  or  leisure 
classes,  but  will  multiply  class  schools  until  there  are 
enough  to  go  around,  and  thus  one  to  fit  each  Amer- 
ican group.  As  an  invitation  to  the  fairer  possibilities 
— because  the  best  wealth  of  a  nation  is  always  its 
poor  boys — all  these  diverse  groups  of  schools  will  be 
'open  at  the  top.'  The  state,  as  destiny,  must  never 
forbid  the  university  to  any  child  because  he  is  poor 
or  black." 


i8o  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Race  More  Varied  than  Class.  "When  this  central 
issue  is  secure,  it  freely  follows  that  the  immediate 
economic  and  practical  needs  of  any  historically  pe- 
culiar or  socially  handicapped  group  of  Americans, 
such  as  the  juvenile  delinquent,  the  Indian,  the  immi- 
grant's child,  the  unskilled  worker,  may  dictate  a  tem- 
porary policy  of  special  training  for  their  masses.  The 
actual  employment  of  such  a  policy  can  be  justified 
only  by  a  detailed  sociological  study  of  their  actual 
situation.  But  such  a  study  reveals  that  the  Negro's 
case  at  least  is  not  parallel  to  those  cited.  His  life 
is  indefinitely  broader  than  that  of  any  social  group. 
His  millions  contain  groups  of  all  degrees  of  develop- 
ment. The  only  analogy  for  him  is  the  analogy  of 
white  population  in  its  entirety.  He  needs  not  one 
but  all  kinds  of  American  education  for  the  diverse 
grades  and  classes  of  his  people. 

Life  from  Within.  The  profoundest  educational 
right  of  any  people  is  the  right  to  have  its  inner  re- 
sources of  character  utilized  for  its  own  uplift.  Sub- 
ject groups,  whether  children,  women,  or  dependent 
races,  while  they  cannot  be  controlled  unless  their 
own  souls  are  enlisted  in  the  task,  may  be  and  have 
been  warped  and  distorted  by  external  pressure.  It 
can  hinder  but  cannot  help.  It  never  succeeds.  The 
modern  school  confesses  that  when  it  fails  to  awaken 
the  child's  own  interest  its  failure  is  absolute.  Some 
are  bold  to  believe  that  the  world- wanderings  of  the 
"new  woman"  will  lead  her  back  to  many  of  her  old 
tasks,  but  if  so  it  must  be  because  her  heart  comes 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  181 

around  to  them  again.  Her  return  cannot  be  of  com- 
pulsion. At  all  hazards  she  must  follow  the  inner  light. 
The  question  of  incentive  is  equally  central  for  Negro 
education.  Vocational  efficiency  in  the  long  run  must 
be  the  same  as  social  efficiency.  Train,  indeed,  for 
the  child's  "actual  condition  in  life,"  but  be  quite  sure 
that  condition  is  understood.  We  inhabit  many-storied 
houses  and  our  true  calling  is  to  occupy  them  through- 
out. The  effort  to  make  any  man  a  good  worker  with- 
out making  him  a  full  man  will  fail ;  and  could  it  suc- 
ceed, it  would  but  give  us  a  blinded  Samson  grinding 
in  the  prison-house  of  spiritual  bondage. * 

The  Church  and  Religion.  In  no  sphere  is  the  utili- 
zation of  native  capacity  and  resource  on  the  part  of 
non-European  populations  so  subtly  and  profoundly 
important  as  in  religion,  and  in  none  have  they  blos- 
somed more  convincingly.  For  example,  seven  eighths 
of  all  Negro  churches  are  included  within  racial  de- 
nominations, self-governing  and  chiefly  self-support- 
ing. Ninety-eight  per  cent,  belong  to  the  various 
Methodist  and  Baptist  bodies.  All  told,  the  Negro 
church  is  the  chief  institutional  achievement  of  the 
race;  its  best  embodiment  of  self-government  and 
group  ideals.  On  the  other  hand,  as  an  agency  of 
Christian  life  and  leadership  it  has  notable  defects — 
lax  moral  standards,  poor  business  methods,  crude  and 
noisy  worship,  no  fundamental  grasp  of  race  needs 
and  their  remedies.  In  these  matters,  while  all  de- 
nominations are  struggling  forward,  the  chief  stand- 

1  Christian  Reconstruction  in  the  South,  296,  299,  301. 


i&2  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

ard-bearers  of  social  redirection  have  been,  and  still 
largely  are,  a  relatively  few  churches  attached  to  the 
Northern  denominations,  and  notable  for  their  edu- 
cated ministry,  restraint  in  worship,  rigid  morals,  and 
careful  supervision. 

Spiritual  Gifts  and  Fruits.  The  raw  material  of  re- 
ligion is  possessed  by  the  Negro  in  rich  abundance, 
together  with  a  very  genius  for  its  portrayal.  Over 
and  over  again  their  worship  repeats  the  universal  and 
fundamental  cycle  of  religious  experience;  first,  the 
sense  of  misery  and  unworthiness  amounting  often  to 
complete  physical  collapse;  then  the  feeling  of  salva- 
tion and  uplift  by  a  power  not  oneself;  finally  the  joy 
of  relief  and  abandon  of  gratitude.  Indeed,  to  awaken 
this  round  of  emotion  and  to  dramatize  it  by  voice, 
posture,  and  action  is  the  express  object  of  the  typi- 
cal Negro  church  service.  Some  of  the  simpler  fruits 
of  religion  too  are  delightfully  exhibited  in  the  Negro's 
version  of  it :  a  characteristic  cheerfulness  based  on 
faith  as  well  as  on  temperament;  an  unfeigned  piety, 
dependent,  resigned,  childlike ;  a  mood  of  friendliness 
to  fellow  Christians.  Never  have  these  graces  and  the 
vitality  and  power  of  Negro  religion  had  franker 
recognition  than  by  many  of  the  masters  of  slavery 
days.  Whoever  knows  Negro  believers  knows  saints 
not  a  few ;  souls  which  have  much  to  teach  and  to  give 
of  the  fine  mystery  of  salvation. 

The  One  Spirit.  No  original  theology  or  formula- 
tion of  Christian  truth  is  yet  included  in  the  Negro's 
religious  development.  At  the  same  time  it  has  by  no 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  183 

means  remained  naive  and  unsophisticated.  On  the 
plane  of  practical  wisdom,  it  has  studied  deeply  the 
spiritual  states  of  men,  their  moral  weaknesses,  and 
the  common  means  of  grace.  Profound  and  shrewd 
insights  abound  in  sermonizing  and  glow  in  prayer 
and  song.  As  religious  lyrics  the  jubilee  melodies 
reach  universal  significance  and  stand  as  a  unique 
racial  contribution  to  American  Christianity. 

Fresh  Potencies  of  Grace.  No  one  can  deal  with 
the  hopes  and  aspirations  of  these  churches  without 
feeling  that  their  initiative  and  self-consciousness  is 
something  to  be  touched  reverently.  Their  religious 
genius  includes  fresh  and  unexplored  spiritual  poten- 
cies. It  is  a  stream  of  grace  newly  sprung  from  the 
Source  of  all  grace,  from  which  uniquely  interesting 
expressions  are  to  be  expected.  In  spite  of  all  their 
too  well  known  shortcomings  it  is  easy  to  feel  in  the 
collective  religious  life  of  the  Negro  churches  the 
presence  of  a  very  holy  thing.  To  the  Christian  mind 
the  deepest  fact  in  any  human  being  or  group  is  the 
fact  of  God.  "If  then  God  gave  unto  them  the  like 
gift  as  he  did  also  unto  us,  when  we  believed  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  was  I,  that  I  could  withstand 
God"  (Acts  xi.  17). 

On  Earth  as  It  Is  in  Heaven.  Confronted  with  the 
fact  of  God  in  the  darker-skinned  races,  the  mission- 
ary conscience  is  compelled  to  face  the  often  dis- 
quieting issue  of  ultimate  race  relations  undei  the 
gospel.  The  necessity  of  facing  it  is  implicit  in  the 
great  Christian  consequence  of  God  in  men, — the  fact 


184  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

of  brotherhood.  Especially  does  the  whole  momentum 
of  the  modern  social  conscience  press  for  at  least  a 
tentative  answer  as  to  how  the  races  are  to  live  to- 
gether in  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 

Peter  and  Cornelius.  The  New  Testament  nar- 
rates pointedly,  in  the  Peter  and  Cornelius  episode, 
the  particular  method  of  the  new-born  impulse  to 
brotherhood  in  the  early  Church.  And  the  Spirit's 
first  step  in  this  actual  case  is  disappointing.  It  seems 
negative  and  inglorious.  It  is  the  refusal  to  make 
dogmatic  announcement  to  prejudiced  minds  of  the 
exact  terms  of  unprejudiced  fellowship.  One  step  the 
Spirit  takes  inexorably :  There  are  social  consequences 
to  religions  fellowship.  Cornelius  drew  the  conclusion 
that  baptism  at  Peter's  hands  implied  social  intimacy 
on  Peter's  part — "Then  prayed  they  him  to  tarry  cer- 
tain days."  To  Cornelius  this  was  the  climax  of  the 
episode;  and  Cornelius  was  right.  The  church  in 
Jerusalem,  on  the  other  hand,  did  not  at  all  meet  the 
issue  which  Cornelius  raised.  When  they  heard 
Peter's  story  "they  held  their  peace"  (as  to  his  social 
conduct)  "and  glorified  God,  saying,  'Then  to  the 
Gentiles  also  hath  God  granted  repentance  unto  life.' ' 
This  is  the  great  admission  of  the  spiritual  princi- 
ple of  Christian  brotherhood;  yet  it  is  quite  a  dif- 
ferent matter  from  stopping  in  a  Gentile's  house 
certain  days. 

Not  Forcing  the  Issue.  This  evasion  of  the  social 
consequences  of  the  gospel  was  cowardice  on  the  part 
of  the  Church — yet  not  to  force  it  was  wisdom  on  the 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  185 

part  of  the  Spirit.  The  half -emancipated  mind  of  the 
Church  was  by  no  means  ready  for  the  ultimate  issue. 
It  could  not  bear  it  then ;  it  cannot  bear  it  now.  We 
are  not  prepared  to  raise  in  detail  the  question  of  ulti- 
mate social  arrangements  under  the  gospel. 

Type  of  Mind  Required.  What  manner  of  mind 
might  judge  that  question?  A  stubbornly  teachable 
mind,  ready  to  experiment  to  the  death  with  race 
relations,  as  men  with  the  flying-machine.  Assuredly 
a  free  mind,  not  one  browbeaten  by  repressive  preju- 
dice. Still  more  necessarily  a  just  mind,  unswayed 
by  the  clamor  of  racial  epithets.  Finally,  the  mind  of 
Christ,  for  which  (God  forgive  us)  we  have  sub- 
stituted a  mongrel  religion. 

Milk  for  Babes.  At  worst  we  have  no  right  to  as- 
sume that  the  terms  of  perfected  Christian  fellowship 
will  be  offensive.  Indeed  we  ought  to  know,  on  the 
authority  of  such  fragmentary  Christianity  as  we  have, 
that  they  cannot  be  offensive.  Christianity  has  not 
had  a  chance  to  show  what  unforced  forms  its  fellow- 
ship will  take.  But  the  gospel  cannot  require  of  us 
that  to  which  it  does  not  first  conform  our  hearts. 
Love  is — love,  which  means  something  spontaneous; 
and  there  is  no  fear  in  it. 

Searching  Standard  of  the  Kingdom.  Again,  we 
know  that  the  proprieties  of  the  kingdom  of  God  will 
not  be  lax.  Its  sense  of  social  fitness  will  not  be  less 
keen  than  that  of  the  world.  Some  men  of  wealth 
will  find  surprising  difficulty  in  getting  into  so  select 
a  company.  Does  one  really  fear  that  Christian  so- 


186  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

ciety  will  be  less  refined  than  Mrs.  Grundy  ?  Will  the 
emancipated  soul  be  less  socially  discriminating  than 
the  traditional?  Does  the  taste  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  suggest  social  promiscuity  and  anarchy.  So  long 
as  perfect  love  delays  to  cast  out  all  fear,  it  will  help 
many  to  ask  themselves  such  questions. 

Brotherliness  a  Constructive  Principle.  Far  more 
important  is  it  to  insist  that  Christian  brotherliness  is 
a  constructive  social  principle,  which  we  must  first 
free  and  then  trust.  We  must  not  force  its  hand  nor 
let  another  do  so. 

Realizing  Brotherhood  through  Personal  Courage. 
The  story  of  Peter  and  Cornelius  teaches  also  that 
there  is  immediate  specific  gain  every  time  the  chal- 
lenge of  brotherliness  is  pressed  to  a  particular  issue. 
"Can  any  man  forbid  the  water,  that  these  should  not 
be  baptized,  who  have  received  the  Holy  Spirit  as  well 
as  we?"  This  is  not  the  word  of  a  man  dogmatically 
certain  of  the  whole  future,  nor  yet  of  a  man  assured 
just  now  even  of  the  assent  of  the  whole  Church. 
Rather,  it  is  the  instant  clinching  of  the  gains  of  an 
exalted  hour,  by  a  man  none  too  certain  even  of  his 
own  heart.  There  is  a  grimly  humorous  contrast  be- 
tween Peter's  courage,  with  the  Spirit's  immediate 
backing,  and  Peter's  defensive  attitude  before  the 
critical  Jerusalem  church.  The  moral  is :  If  you  feel 
a  big,  fine,  generous,  brotherly  impulse,  act  on  it — 
you  may  cool  off  by  to-morrow,  too. 

Step  by  Step.  Yet  at  the  worst,  every  time  any 
man,  however  feeble  his  courage,  has  dared  to  throw 


RESTATEMENT  OF  RACE  PROBLEMS  187 

out  that  challenge,  a  specific  gain  has  been  made.  Can 
any  man  forbid  the  water?  No  man  ever  has.  They 
have  been  baptized  in  it.  Prejudice  for  a  moment 
has  been  dissolved.  Brotherhood  for  a  moment  has 
been  realized.  Nay,  sometimes  it  even  lasts  on  for 
several  days.  Make  the  challenge  over  again  and 
the  days  of  brotherliness  begin  to  overlap.  Finally, 
some  good  day,  they  merge  together  and  there  shall 
be  no  more  night.  This  is  the  heroic,  constructive 
method  of  achieving  brotherhood  piecemeal,  through 
personal  courage.  For  those  who  are  of  the  kingdom 
and  patience  of  Jesus  it  will  suffice. 


THE    SOCIAL    REACTION    OF    HOME    MIS- 
SIONS  UPON   THE  CHURCH 


THE  SOCIAL  REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS  UPON 
THE   CHURCH 

Weakness  of  Division.  Even  the  pillar  of  fire  had 
its  dark  side.  Told  in  the  book  of  Joshua  the 
conquest  of  Caanan  seems  the  exalted  onslaught  of  a 
united  people;  told  in  the  book  of  Judges  it  appears 
as  a  long-drawn-out  series  of  independent  tribal  forays 
and  fragmentary  occupancies  with  only  occasional 
brief  spurts  of  national  cooperation.  A  third  record 
of  the  same  events — also  a  true  one — might  have  been 
written' from  the  standpoint  of  the  Caananites.  "Israel 
struck  us  down  at  length,"  it  would  read,  "but  how 
much  sooner  would  they  have  done  it  if  they  had 
always  struck  together!" 

Competitive  Missions.  The  facts  permit  the  story 
of  home  missions  to  be  told  as  hitherto  in  this  book, 
namely,  as  the  common  geographical  expansion  and 
social  readjustment  of  Protestant  Christianity.  This 
furnishes  a  sound,  illuminating,  and  practical  view- 
point. It  is  not  complete,  however,  without  the  con- 
fession of  the  sectarian  aspects  of  home  missions. 
The  conquest  of  America  by  the  Church  has  been  made 
under  the  competitive  system.  This  fact  has  peculiarly 

191 


192  THE  NEW  HOME  "MISSIONS 

determined  the  social  forms  of  home  missions.  Most 
of  the  thousands  of  pages  which  have  been  written 
about  home  missions  during  the  last  hundred  years 
have  treated  them  implicitly  if  not  explicitly  as  the 
process  of  denominational  self-propagation.  Its  large 
motive  has  been  that  of  extending  some  particular 
communion  throughout  the  nation.  This  has  been  the 
appeal  to  which  men  responded  in  prayer,  and  in  cash ; 
and  in  this  aspect  home  missions  are  most  definitely 
challenged  by  the  newer  social  insights  and  tasks  of 
the  Church. 

Sectarianism.  Let  it  be  understood  from  the  outset 
that  social  insight  and  duty  do  not  challenge  sectarian- 
ism because  it  is  sectarian,  but  because  it  is  harmfully 
divisive.  Sect  is  a  word  from  which  the  average 
Protestant  instinctively  shies.  An  uneasy  conscience 
drives  him  to  seek  some  softer  equivalent.  But  the 
sociologist  does  not  spare  us;  in  his  analysis  we  are 
sectarians.  Nor  is  sectarianism  a  bad  thing  unless  it 
works  badly.  It  merely  means  that  there  are,  within 
the  immense  variety  of  any  nation's  population,  certain 
like-minded  people  who  are  mentally  reen forced  by 
one  another  and  thus  make  some  one  chord  to  vibrate 
with  great  vigor.  Having  discovered  one  another, 
such  people  draw  together,  create  agencies  emphasiz- 
ing their  common  interests,  and  achieve  some  form  of 
organization.  By  badges  and  banners  they  make  them- 
selves a  "peculiar  people."  By  their  slogans  ye  shall 
know  them  (when  not  by  their  nicknames) — Socialist, 
Suffragist,  Progressive,  Pragmatist,  Futurist,  Cubist. 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS         193 

Religious  sects  are  no  less  respectable  if  based  upon 
distinctions  equally  vital. 

The  Social  Justification  of  Sect.  According  to  this 
definition  one  easily  understands  why  many  a  sect  will 
be  short-lived.  The  furor  which  throws  its  tempo- 
rary movement  upon  the  crest  of  the  social  wave  sub- 
sides. It  represented  no  permanent  human  interest  or 
point  of  view.  Its  abortive  "organ"  suspends  after 
the  third  issue.  On  the  other  hand,  sheltered  in  clois- 
ter or  in  lodge-room,  expressed  by  robe  or  regalia,  en- 
trenched in  secrecy,  a  sect  with  scant  capital  of  dis- 
tinctive interest  may  perpetuate  itself  for  a  long  time — 
so  ample  in  man  is  the  faculty  of  imitation.  Any  sect 
which  has  vitality  enough  to  meet  normal  exposure  to 
the  competitive  interests  of  civilization  and  to  with- 
stand its  leveling  forces  when  fairly  met,  may  be  as- 
sumed to  have  some  social  value,  temporarily  at  least. 
So  far  as  American  religious  sects  have  been  based  in 
an  honest  attempt  to  rally  like-minded  people  around 
an  idea  which  they  felt  worthy,  they  have  been  so- 
cially natural,  intelligible,  and  so  far  admirable. 
To  call  them  sects  makes  them  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  the  merits  of  their  case  as  judged  by  its  ulti- 
mate social  results. 

The  Inevitability  of  Sect.  Organization  by  sect  is 
one  of  the  permanent  methods  of  human  society.  Such 
organization  may  take  place  within  as  easily  as  without 
the  bounds  of  a  Church.  Thus  the  various  monastic 
orders  of  Roman  Catholicism  and  the  high  or  low 
church  parties,  the  liberals  or  conservatives  of  Protes- 


194  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

tantism,  if  they  have  common  standards,  leaders,  and 
organs  of  expression,  are  as  truly  sects  as  though  they 
were  completely  separate  rival  denominations.  Sec- 
tarianism therefore  as  a  natural  phenomenon  is  not 
incompatible  with  a  certain  unity  in  the  Church ;  since 
sects  are  already  comprehended  in  bodies  whose  large 
unity  is  not  broken.  A  Church  may  learn  to  be  more 
tolerant  and  inclusive  instead  of  dividing,  and  this 
alternative  is  just  as  often  used  as  the  method  of  divi- 
sion is.  But  not  to  divide  does  not  remedy  or  obliter- 
ate sects.  It  simply  reacts  upon  them  in  another 
way.  These  considerations  are  intended  to  convince 
the  reader  that  he  must  abandon  all  idea  that  sec- 
tarianism in  itself  is  either  bad  or  good,  in  order  to 
study  its  particular  forms  in  the  American  Church 
and  to  judge  by  their  actual  social  results  how  much  of 
either  bad  or  good  has  been  in  them. 

Sectarian  Methods  Taken  for  Granted.  The  older 
home  missions  definitely  organized  themselves  for 
sectarian  propagation  and  perpetuation,  taking  for 
granted  the  measures  necessary  to  bring  this  result 
about.  Thus  a  majority  of  the  governing  board  of 
the  typical  church  school  were  required  to  belong  to 
the  communion  which  founded  it,  or  else  were  wholly 
the  appointees  of  some  ecclesiastical  body.  The  teach- 
ers must  be  of  like  faith.  For  professors  creed  sub- 
scription was  necessary.  Fixed  requirements  of  re- 
ligious observation  extended  to  students,  and  this  was 
intended  to  secure  continuity  of  belief  and  tradition. 
Students  for  the  ministry  got  free  tuition  and  other 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        195 

aid  and  became  thus  financially  obligated  to  their 
denominations.  Barely  living  salaries,  with  more  or 
less  certain  annuities  in  case  of  disablement,  age,  or 
death,  tended  to  keep  the  clergy  in  a  permanent  eco- 
nomic bondage.  In  many  communions,  periodical 
accounting  for  denominational  results  was  exacted 
of  all  denominational  servants;  and  in  all,  promotion 
and  esteem  depended  largely  upon  the  numbers  and 
money  found  to  their  credit  in  denominational  book- 
keeping. This  made  the  home  missionary  largely  a 
propagandist  of  some  special  sectarian  gospel  in  con- 
scious competition  with  others. 

Education  in  Sect  Loyalty.  Frontier  churches  were 
constantly  reminded  that  their  denomination  was  aid- 
ing them  now  in  the  expectation  of  receiving  as  much 
again  and  that  very  soon;  they  must  therefore  hasten 
on  to  self -support.  Of  seventeen  boards  whose  con- 
ditions of  granting  aid  were  recently  examined,  but 
one  failed  to  make  this  duty  of  sect-loyalty  explicitly 
paramount.  Denominational  boards  and  bishops  pros- 
pered or  starved  according  to  their  success  in  gaining 
funds  and  adherents  for  their  own  communions.  A 
definite  type  of  sectarian  ecclesiastic  developed.  Men- 
tally and  morally  he  was  own  cousin  to  the  magnates 
of  competitive  business. 

Pleas  and  Plans  of  Propaganda.  "Benevolence" 
was  skilfully  wrung  from  faithful  denominationalists 
on  pleas  of  the  frontier's  need  of  the  gospel  inter- 
spersed with  reports  of  the  progress  of  "our  glorious 
Church."  Doubtless  this  mood  was  more  marked  in 


196  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

some  communions  than  in  others.  Some,  like  the  Con- 
gregationalists  in  their  plan  of  union  with  the  Pres- 
byterians, or  in  the  South,  were  liberal  in  regions 
where  the  character  of  the  population  gave  them  little 
chance  to  succeed,  and  sectarian  where  they  found 
themselves  really  in  the  denominational  race.  All 
shared  competitive  methods  and  ambitions  and  all 
had  reaches  of  consciousness  and  of  service  which 
towered  above  all  sectarian  formulation.  To  these 
this  book  as  a  whole  bears  vigorous  witness;  mean- 
while this  chapter  sets  itself  to  read  faithfully  the 
other  side  of  the  shield. 

Origins  of  American  Sects.  Before  passing  verdict 
on  this  process  of  sectarian  self -propagation  it  is  neces- 
sary to  hold  the  mind  still  longer  in  suspense  while 
inquiring  how  the  particular  sects  came  to  be  which 
one  finds  struggling  for  ascendency  in  America? 
Why  these,  one  asks,  and  not  others?  American  de- 
nominationalism  consists  of  all  the  sectarian  divisions 
which  have  immigrated  to  our  shores  from  all  the 
lands  from  which  our  people  came,  generously  multi- 
plied by  national,  linguistic,  and  racial  cleavages  and 
added  to  by  all  the  schisms  of  our  national  history, 
especially  by  the  sectional  shattering  of  the  great  de- 
nominations between  North  and  South;  and  by  all 
the  theological  aberrations  of  crude  minds  unfettered 
and  intoxicated  by  the  intellectual  ferment  of  a  youth- 
ful nation.  From  the  beginning  there  were  Catholic 
and  Protestant;  then  English,  Dutch,  Scotch,  Swede, 
and  German,  each  with  his  national  variant  of  the 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS         197 

Reformed  faith.  The  English  split  again  into  Puritan, 
Quaker,  and  Baptist,  and  again  into  liberal  and  ortho- 
dox. Frontier  disintegrations  of  old  habits,  quickened 
emotionalism,  and  doctrinal  zeal  were  the  occasion  of 
offshoots  like  Cumberland  Presbyterianism  and  that  of 
Alexander  Campbell;  or  the  opportunity  of  freshly 
imported  vital  movements,  especially  that  of  Method- 
ism. When  civilization  had  transformed  frontier 
crudity,  reaction  sometimes  set  in  and  pioneer  religious 
ways  persisted  in  sectarian  guise,  as  in  the  Primitive 
Baptists  of  the  Southern  mountain  states.  Religious 
originators  like  William  Miller,  Joseph  Smith,  Mrs. 
Eddy,  and  John  Alexander  Dowie  founded  sects  on 
alleged  direct  revelations.  Churches  imported  by  in- 
coming races  brought  the  sectarianism  of  Babel  not 
yet  mastered  by  the  spirit  of  Pentecost. 

The  End  Not  Yet.  Altogether  there  are  186  va- 
rieties of  American  Christian,  differing  in  polity 
or  doctrine,  or  nationality  or  race  or  temperament; 
and  doubtless  more  to  follow.  There  is  absolute 
liberty  of  religious  practise  so  far  as  is  compatible 
with  civilized  decency.  The  Church  is  a  voluntary 
organization  supported  by  the  gifts  of  its  member- 
ship. Any  one  who  can  get  one  disciple  may  start  a 
sect.  The  census  will  enumerate  one  with  as  few  as 
a  dozen  churches.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  num- 
ber should  not  be  indefinitely  multiplied. 

A  Plea  in  Mitigation — Great  Family  Groups.  But 
it  is  not  fair  to  leave  the  matter  without  certain  quali- 
fying comments.  First,  the  actual  situation  is  not 


198  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

nearly  so  bad  as  the  confession  that  there  are  186  de- 
nominations sounds.  The  mighty  Methodist,  Baptist, 
Lutheran,  and  Presbyterian  family  groups  include  the 
vast  majority  of  Protestant  Christians.  While  divi- 
sions within  families  are  often  the  most  bitter  and 
irritating,  still  families  are  families,  with  ties  to  bind 
them  together  as  well  as  tempers  to  drive  them  apart. 
There  remains  the  principle,  and  in  important  respects, 
the  practise  of  union  within  these  groups,  which  re- 
cently are  showing  special  capacity  for  cooperating  or 
getting  together. 

Church  Has  Succeeded.  Second,  the  Church  as  de- 
nominationally propagated  in  America  has  succeeded. 
It  has  been  growing  faster  than  the  population.  In 
1850  there  were  only  149  church-members  out  of  every 
thousand  of  our  people;  now  there  are  391.  The 
ratio  has  much  more  than  doubled.  Between  1890 
and  1906  church-membership  gained  upon  population 
by  over  6  per  cent.  The  immigration  of  this  period 
was  overwhelmingly  Catholic,  in  spite  of  which  the 
Protestant  gain  was  nearly  2  per  cent.  America's 
total  church-membership  in  1906  was  32  million.  To 
count  children  and  adherents  would  be  to  multiply 
this  multitude  more  than  twice.  Over  a  billion  dollars 
is  invested  in  church  property.  There  are  sittings  in 
houses  of  worship  for  58  million  people.  Over  twelve 
million  dollars  are  spent  annually  for  home  missions, 
and  thirty-eight  millions  are  applied  to  human  better- 
ment under  definite  Christian  direction.  Whether  be- 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS         199 

cause  of  or  in  spite  of  sectarian  methods,  these  are 
the  facts. 

Overchurching  Is  Limited.  Third,  there  are  thou- 
sands of  communities  in  America  which  have  never 
known  the  actual  rivalries  of  sectarian  churches.  Of 
missionary  aid  extended  to  churches  in  Vermont  by 
Baptists,  Congregationalists,  and  Methodists,  45  per 
cent,  goes  to  fields  where  there  is  but  one  church.  In 
thousands  of  communities  more,  sectarianism  has  not 
worked  distinct  moral  or  social  harm.  The  Colorado 
survey  of  the  Federal  Council  found  only  1 1  per  cent, 
of  communities  where  flagrantly  objectionable  duplica- 
tion of  churches  existed. 

The  Indictment — (i)  Divisiveness.  So  far  the  dis- 
cussion has  professed  to  hold  the  scales  even  as  to  the 
good  or  evil  of  denominationalism  in  home  missions. 
One  may  be  pardoned  for  suspecting,  however,  that  the 
last  few  paragraphs  were  a  sort  of  plea  of  mitigation 
in  advance  of  a  dreaded  indictment.  And  now  the 
indictment  must  be  faced :  denominational  home  mis- 
sions have  made  a  profound  social  failure.  First, 
they  have  made  the  American  people  more  different 
than  they  were,  and  have  kept  them  more  different  than 
they  might  have  been  if  subjected  to  other  nationaliz- 
ing influences  without  the  pullback  of  sect.  Denomina- 
tions have  caused  extra  and  arbitrary  social  divisions, 
have  sometimes  fixed  hurtful  schisms,  have  prevented 
assimilation.  Not  all  of  the  sects  have  been  guilty 
of  all  of  these  sins,  and  perhaps  none  of  them  has 
been  guilty  all  of  the  time;  but  these  have  been  their 


200  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

collective  results.  In  the  large  the  charge  stands. 
The  Church  has  hindered  as  well  as  helped  the  Amer- 
icanization of  Americans. 

The  Indictment — (2)  Neglect  and  Preoccupation. 
In  supplying  the  religious  needs  of  the  nation  the 
Church  has,  in  the  second  place,  flagrantly  disregarded 
the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  congesting  privilege  in 
the  more  desirable  places  denominationally  speaking, 
and  leaving  vast  numbers  of  obscure  places  without 
the  adequate  gospel.  Besides  the  Church  has  been 
so  preoccupied  with  self-propagation  as  not  easily 
to  sense  many  of  its  newer  social  duties  as  they  have 
appeared.  It  has  therefore  now  belatedly  to  cure 
evils  which  a  socially-minded  Church  might  have  pre- 
vented. 

An  Extreme  Case.  The  evidence  for  these  charges 
of  social  failure  may  be  read  in  single  cases  or  in  the 
great  summaries  of  religious  conditions.  Thus  a  com- 
munity of  800  souls  in  a  far  Western  state  is  re- 
ported as  having  eight  churches,  as  follows :  Catholic, 
Presbyterian,  Baptist,  3  Lutheran,  and  2  Methodist. 
The  investigator  finds  that  sectarian  envy  and  jealousy 
express  themselves  in  social  cliques  and  an  anti-com- 
munity spirit,  but  that  by  strange  contradiction  there 
is  little  genuine  denominationalism  in  the  people.  Ten 
denominations  are  represented  in  the  membership  of 
the  Presbyterian  church  and  people  easily  pass  from 
one  church  to  another.  This  shows  that  the  population 
could  have  been  united  by  the  churches  much  more 
than  it  was.  There  was  not  really  enough  local  sec- 


AN    OVKRCHfRCHKI)    KfkAL   COMMUNITY 


Within  this  radius  of  four  miles  tin-re  arc  i\  churche 
for  every  i .  >,  |K-rs.,n.s,  indu.liiiK  thil.lrcn;  one  diun  li  lor  t 
every  2.5  families 


This  represents  one  church 
•y  <o  voters;  one  church  fur 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        201 

tarianism  to  create  8  churches  without  assistance 
through  the  pressure  of  outside  organizations.  The 
Catholic  church  in  this  community,  one  assumes,  em- 
bodies historic  differences  which  it  is  necessary  to 
express;  the  Presbyterian  and  Baptist  perhaps  stand 
for  the  more  intellectual  in  contrast  to  the  more  emo- 
tional type  of  religious  experience.  It  would  be  fair 
enough  to  mark  this  difference  by  separate  organiza- 
tions among  8,000  people,  but  not  among  800.  The  3 
Lutheran  bodies  divide  along  linguistic  lines,  and 
are  samples  of  the  24  divisions  into  which  that  noble 
communion  has  sadly  fallen  in  the  national  life.  The 
Methodist  divisions  are  Northern  and  Southern.  These 
meaninglessly  continue  in  the  far  West  old  border  bit- 
ternesses of  which  men  have  long  ago  repented  in  rela- 
tions in  which  they  are  more  Christian  than  they  are 
in  their  churches.  Thus  800  souls  are  less  united, 
less  American,  less  socially  effective  and  probably  less 
religious  because  of  the  churches  as  they  are. 

Average  Conditions.  The  author's  memory  runs 
back  to  three  out-in-the-country  charges  in  one  of 
which  he,  as  a  Congregationalist,  fought  the  Presby- 
terians, in  another  the  Baptists,  in  the  third  the  Meth- 
odists. In  one  case  the  community  was  suffering  a 
heritage  of  sectarian  bitterness  which  had  divided 
families  and  always  obtruded  itself  into  the  simple 
social  gatherings  of  the  countryside.  In  all  the  cases 
it  involved  a  waste  of  time  and  money  to  have  dupli- 
catory  churches  at  work.  In  none  of  them  could  the 
modern  community  service  program  for  the  country 


202  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

church  have  been  carried  out  without  grave  hindrance, 
by  reason  of  denominational  division  and  jealousy.  In 
each  of  them  the  denominational  evil  will  have  to  be 
healed — if  it  has  not  been  already — before  the  church 
can  do  the  business  of  the  Kingdom  in  a  modern,  so- 
cially constructive  sense. 

The  Colorado  Survey.  Turning  nowto  larger  areas : 
The  Colorado  investigation  of  1909  made  by  the  Na- 
tional Federal  Council  of  Churches  revealed  133  places 
in  that  state  of  from  150  to  1,000  population  without 
a  Protestant  church,  100  of  which  had  no  Catholic 
church  either.  Extreme  cases  of  overlapping  were 
reported;  like  the  community  of  300  people  with  six 
churches  receiving  an  aggregate  of  $600  annually  from 
missionary  boards. 

The  Neglected  Fields  Survey.  Far  more  extensive 
than  anything  undertaken  before  is  the  great  Neglected 
Fields  Survey  which  the  Home  Missions  Council  has 
under  way.  It  is  nothing  less  than  a  united  attempt — 
as  yet  imperfectly  carried  out — to  get  detailed  knowl- 
edge of  religious  conditions  in  every  school  district  of 
the  fifteen  Northwestern  states  which,  as  our  remain- 
ing frontier,  receive  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
home  missionary  aid  of  the  nation.  Partial  results 
for  five  states,  which  have  now  been  published,  indi- 
cate that  there  are  probably  170,000  people  in  them 
living  more  than  four  miles  from  a  church,  and  that 
over  1,000  unchurched  communities  show  presumptive 
evidence  of  the  need  of  permanent  organization.  The 
survey  shows  also  what  denominations  might  most 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        203 

usefully  serve  the  people  in  many  of  these  cases.  Thus 
there  are  perhaps  300  calls  to  the  Methodist  church, 
150  to  the  Lutheran,  100  each  to  the  Presbyterian, 
Baptist,  and  Catholic,  50  to  the  Congregational,  and 
so  forth.  But  in  these  cases,  as  in  the  many  cases  of 
overlapping,  the  survey  committee  does  not  pretend  yet 
to  advise  finally  as  to  what  should  be  done.  It  has 
reported  a  general  situation.  There  are  many  points 
of  religious  distribution  and  many  others  of  religious 
congestion.  Much  education  of  local  church  leaders  of 
the  several  states  in  social-mindedness  and  the  spirit 
of  comity  is  necessary,  and  a  more  intensive  study 
of  the  administrative  situation,  before  the  positive  pro- 
gram of  cooperative  advance  can  be  ventured  upon. 
The  situation  is  in  faithful,  responsible  hands  for 
further  working  out. 

Redistribution  of  Religious  Forces.  At  the  same 
time  it  does  discover  and  confess  a  grave  misapplica- 
tion, over  a  vast  area,  of  national  missionary  resources 
directed  and  distributed  through  national  agencies. 
It  is  pertinent  then  to  offer  even  a  theoretical  sugges- 
tion as  to  how  the  Churches  might  better  direct  their 
expenditures,  and  get  the  money  to  found  a  thousand 
new  churches  in  five  states,  should  that  prove  to  be 
wise.  The  researches  of  the  Rev.  George  Frederick 
Wells  show  how  it  might  be  done. 

Case  in  Vermont.  If  the  Baptist,  Congregational, 
and  Methodist  religious  forces  of  Vermont  were  re- 
organized into  non-duplicatory  churches  of  two  hun- 
dred members  each,  with  pastors  receiving  $  1,000  sal- 


204  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

ary  each,  not  only  would  Vermont  be  more  efficiently 
supplied  with  the  gospel,  but  $65,000  per  year  would 
be  released  for  use  elsewhere.  Sending  only  one  third 
of  this  saving  to  the  15  Northwestern  states,  Vermont 
alone  could  maintain  fifty  of  the  thousand  presumably 
necessary  new  churches. 

Showing  of  Rhode  Island.  Little  Rhode  Island  is 
essentially  an  urban  state.  Most  of  its  356  churches 
are  massed  in  the  five  largest  cities.  They  have  65,000 
members  of  27  different  denominations  and  cost  $780,- 
ooo  annually  to  maintain.  In  a  city  a  membership  of 
300  is  not  too  large  nor  a  salary  of  $3,000.  If  the 
religious  forces  were  redistributed  on  this  basis,  Rhode 
Island  would  save  140  ministers  and  $140,000  annually 
for  service  elsewhere.  Rhode  Island  could  then  af- 
ford nearly  50  men  and  sustain  over  100  new 
churches  in  the  Northwest,  have  an  equal  number  left 
for  new  forms  of  social  evangelism  and  still  a  third 
available  for  the  foreign  field. 

A  National  Survey  and  Program.  The  social  aspects 
of  church  organization  as  discovered  and  verified 
over  such  wide  areas,  through  painstaking  investiga- 
tions carried  through  years,  and  digested  by  the  most 
competent  experts,  mark  a  new  era  in  religious  strat- 
egy. It  is  possible  to  hope  that  in  a  very  short  time 
we  may  have  an  adequate  survey  of  the  entire  religious 
forces  of  America,  as  a  basis  for  a  common  program 
of  advance.  Already  the  federal  census  as  relates 
to  the  churches  has  been  distinctly  modified  by  the 
superior  methods  of  the  New  York  Federation  of 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS         205 

Churches.  The  cooperating  churches  could  undoubt- 
edly bring  Congress  to  try  to  find  out  in  the  next 
census  what  needs  to  be  known  in  this  matter  of  na- 
tional import;  or  if  not,  they  can  find  out  for  them- 
selves. The  subject  is  worthy  the  attention  of  the 
universities  in  their  advanced  social  studies.  We 
should  then  in  a  little  while  be  able  to  make  a  com- 
plete theoretical  redistribution  of  the  religious  forces 
of  the  nation  so  as  to  serve  the  social  need  down  to 
the  least  community.  All  the  social  cracks  and  crev- 
ices, which  extensive  home  missions  in  her  proudest 
days  somehow  failed  to  reach,  would  be  supplied — on 
paper.  The  survey  method  extended  to  the  whole  na- 
tion and  interpreted  by  the  best  science  and  scholar- 
ship is  competent  to  give  the  united  American  Church 
its  national  institutional  program.  Till  one  is  reached 
the  work  at  best  will  be  in  the  twilight. 

The  Truth  Even  If  It  Hurts.  There  has  been  a 
fashion  to  deprecate  too  great  plainness  of  speech  in 
the  matter  of  the  duplication  and  overlapping  of 
churches.  The  effect  has  been  feared  upon  the  layman 
and  his  purse.  Will  he  not  say,  "No  more  of  my 
money  to  be  wasted  in  rivalry,"  and  turn  away  with 
the  impression  that  the  Church  is  socially  unadjusted 
to  the  situation  and  generally  inefficient  and  incom- 
petent? Yet  probably  the  aforesaid  layman  is,  this 
very  moment,  paying  a  fourth  more  than  he  should 
for  his  table  because  there  are  too  many  grocery  stores, 
besides  deliberately  contributing  to  the  support  of  a 
minister,  a  choir,  an  untaxed  building,  and  a  janitor 


206  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

in  competition  with  the  church  in  the  next  block.  He 
cannot  cast  the  first  stone,  because  he  lives  in  a  glass 
house.  The  sin  has  been  the  sin  of  all.  Even  at  the 
cost  of  denominationalism  the  religious  needs  of  Amer- 
ica must  be  met;  and  the  layman  must  pay  for 
it  this  way  till  a  better  is  found. 

Better  Way  Found.  As  a  matter  of  fact  a  better 
way  is  being  found.  Not  only  has  the  Church  the 
method  to  find  out  the  conditions  and  their  remedy, 
but  she  has  told  the  truth  about  herself  more  com- 
pletely and  fearlessly  than  any  one  else  has.  And  she 
is  far  along  in  applying  the  remedy.  She  is  in  most 
excellent  position  to  say  to  the  layman:  "We  used 
your  money  magnificently  in  taking  this  nation  for 
God  in  the  continental  sense.  We  are  fast  getting 
both  the  technique  and  the  will  necessary  to  take  it 
for  God  in  the  social  sense.  Only  lift  up  your  eyes 
and  see  how  all  things  ecclesiastical  are  becoming  new 
under  the  impulse  of  the  vision  and  passion  to  save 
the  collective  and  community  life  of  the  people." 

Increasing  Cooperation.  The  remainder  of  the 
chapter  will  try  to  summarize  what  is  to  be  seen  in 
this  realm.  In  1903,  Randolph,  Vermont,  a  typical 
New  England  town  of  1,800  inhabitants,  had  seven 
churches.  The  two  oldest  and  strongest,  the  Congre- 
gational and  the  Christian,  then  united,  sold  one  of 
their  parsonages,  tore  down  one  of  their  meeting- 
houses and,  with  the  aid  of  a  generous  donor,  erected 
a  fine  community  house  and  music  hall.  The  merger 
enabled  the  new  organization  greatly  to  increase  the 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS         207 

pastor's  salary,  to  carry  on  what  corresponds  to  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association  and  Young  Women's 
Christian  Association  work,  to  control  public  amuse- 
ment and  to  use  it  as  a  positive  means  of  grace,  and 
to  command  civic  leadership.  The  experiment  has 
justified  itself  by  ten  years  of  pronounced  success. 

Machinery  of  Direction  and  Adjustment.  One  of 
the  most  enlightened  of  religious  journals,  recently 
describing  this  case,  commented :  "Church  union  has 
furnished  striking  headlines  for  the  press,  provided 
attractive  themes  for  public  speakers,  contributed  to 
the  making  of  books,  has  admitted  of  many  theories, 
and  yet  has  found  but  few  consistent  advocates  who 
have  attempted  to  put  into  practise  what  is  so  ardently 
and  generally  urged."  This  comment  is  so  much  less 
than  the  truth  as  to  be  distinctly  misleading  and  mis- 
chievous. Not  only  do  reports  from  a  single  denom- 
ination indicate  that  it  has  participated  in  the  merg- 
ing or  federating  of  more  than  fifty  churches  within 
two  years;  but  beyond  such  local  combinations  the 
churches  are  weaving  and  strengthening  a  vast  central 
network  of  directive  and  restraining  organization.  In- 
creasingly made  official,  as  real  an  expression  of  the 
Church  in  America  as  the  denominations  themselves, 
it  has  been  called  into  being  chiefly  in  direct  and 
prompt  response  to  the  challenge  of  the  social  task. 
The  organized  Church  is  the  denominations  plus  their 
machinery  of  cooperation  and  adjustment.  The  or- 
dinary church-member  may  not  realize  this,  but  he 
will  never  understand  the  dominant  tendencies  of  his 


208  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

age  till  he  gets  beyond  regarding  local  church  con- 
solidations as  exceptional,  and  fully  appreciates  the 
great  actual  and  permanent  agencies  of  working  unity. 

The  Home  Missions  Council.  Founded  in  1908,  this 
great  agency  of  working  unity  includes  33  boards  of 
national  jurisdiction  working  in  the  United  States  and 
dependencies,  and  represents  thirteen  denominations. 
As  many  as  5,115  of  the  6,066  missionaries  work- 
ing in  the  fifteen  Northwestern  states  are  under  the 
commission  of  its  constituent  boards  who  have  co- 
operatively agreed,  first,  to  the  mutual  allotment  of  all 
unoccupied  fields  that  none  may  be  without  the  re- 
ligious privileges,  and  second,  "to  decline  to  endorse 
applications  for  home  mission  aid  in  places  where  the 
gospel  of  Christ  is  earnestly  and  adequately  promul- 
gated by  others,  and  where  assured  prospects  of 
growth  do  not  seem  to  demand  the  establishment  of 
other  churches."  On  these  two  commandments — 
against  "overlapping"  and  "overlooking" — hang  the 
law  and  the  prophets  of  the  united  home  missionary 
program. 

Cooperation  for  Special  Groups.  Standing  com- 
mittees of  the  Home  Missions,  Council  on  immigrants, 
Indians,  Spanish-speaking  peoples,  Negroes,  and  other 
exceptional  groups,  act  as  clearing-houses  for  common 
plans  in  their  respective  fields,  all  having  under  way 
important  pieces  of  united  work.  The  immigration 
committee  is  midway  in  a  nation-wide  survey  to  deter- 
mine the  measure  both  of  overlooking  and  overlapping 
in  missions  to  the  stranger  within  our  gates.  After 


REV.  CHARLES   L.  THOMPSON 

Chairman  of  the  Home  Missions  Council,  roprocntmt;   v;  orK;ini/~itions  and  34  denominations 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        209 

a  careful  study  three  years  ago,  the  entire  unevan- 
gelized  Indian  population  was  allotted  definitely,  group 
by  group,  to  the  different  denominations,  who  are  oc- 
cupying the  assigned  territory  as  rapidly  as  their 
funds  permit,  and  also  undertaking  joint  educational 
work  at  certain  points.  Interdenominational  councils 
have  been  organized,  composed  of  executive  and  other 
workers  among  the  Orientals  of  the  Pacific  coast,  and 
the  Spanish-speaking  people  of  the  Southwest.  These 
act  as  agents  of  the  Home  Missions  Council  and  of 
their  several  boards  in  comity  matters  and  in  united 
work.  For  example,  native  evangelists  representing 
our  common  Christianity  have  been  sent  to  scattered 
Orientals  in  small  and  transient  rural  groups,  and  sup- 
ported by  subsidies  paid  jointly  by  the  boards. 

Comity  in  Porto  Rico.  From  the  first  American 
occupancy,  Porto  Rico  has  been  divided  territorially 
for  mission  work  between  the  larger  denominations. 
While  others  have  later  pressed  in  without  full  regard 
for  comity  considerations,  the  Island  after  thirteen 
years  remains  essentially  without  overlapping  of  forces 
and  with  all  its  significant  towns  occupied — very  in- 
adequately indeed,  by  the  cooperative  Protestant  ad- 
vance. Joint  educational  and  publication  agencies  are 
also  engaged  in  by  the  more  neighborly  denomina- 
tions. 

United  Measures  for  Negroes.  These  are  so  largely 
carried  on  by  agencies  not  fully  coordinate  with  most 
of  the  constituent  boards  of  the  Home  Missions  Coun- 
cil, that  cooperative  measures  have  chiefly  originated 


210  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

in  voluntary  joint  conferences  of  officials.  They  act 
however  in  close  cooperation  with  the  Council,  and 
also  with  the  great  funds  for  Negro  education  and 
the  Federal  government  Substantial  beginnings  have 
been  made  in  standardizing  courses  of  study  and  school 
administration,  in  the  exclusion  of  unworthy  and 
fraudulent  institutions,  and  in  federating  competitive 
institutions. 

The  General  Boards  of  Denominational  Education. 
These  have  also  their  Council  established  in  1911,  in 
which  most  of  the  stronger  communions  are  included. 
It  is  working  on  the  problems  of  the  distribution  of 
colleges  and  academies  with  respect  to  comity  consid- 
erations, the  control  of  new  foundations,  standards  of 
academic  efficiency,  cooperation  with  the  state  uni- 
versities, and  joint  measures  for  publicity,  and  for  in- 
teresting givers  in  Christian  education.  Comity  in  this 
field  may  hope  for  financial  encouragement  from  that 
benevolent  disposer  of  educational  destiny,  the  Gen- 
eral Education  Board. 

Cooperation  of  All  Home  and  Foreign  Missions 
Agencies.  The  general  policies  of  home  missionary 
promotion,  agitation,  and  advocacy  are  now  planned 
unitedly  by  the  Home  Missions  Council  and  the  coop- 
erating Council  of  Women  for  Home  Missions.  They 
in  turn  now  stand  in  a  larger  affiliation  of  all  home 
and  foreign  missionary  agencies  in  their  approach  to 
the  Christian  public  for  interest  and  support.  Whether 
the  whirlwind  campaign  methods  familiarized  by  the 
Laymen's  Missionary  and  Men  and  Religion  Move- 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        211 

ments  survive  or  not,  the  unity  of  missionary  agencies 
is  permanently  attained  in  this  field.  Joint  plans,  joint 
budgets,  the  common  use  of  experts  and  devices  are 
here  to  stay. 

Missionary  Education.  Particularly  in  the  sphere  of 
missionary  education  is  cooperation  made  effective  and 
permanent.  Through  the  Missionary  Education  Move- 
ment, as  the  agent  of  the  boards  for  pedagogical  and 
publishing  work,  is  produced  the  general  literature 
necessary  to  carry  out  missionary  advocacy  as  jointly 
planned  from  year  to  year,  and,  more  especially,  care- 
fully prepared  and  graded  text-books  and  other  mater- 
ial for  mission  study  classes.  These  are  circulated  by 
the  hundred  thousand.  Summer  assemblies  are  also 
held  for  the  training  of  teachers  for  such  classes  and 
of  missionary  leaders  in  the  local  churches.  Technical 
methods  are  cooperatively  worked  out  by  the  Move- 
ment and  the  educational  secretaries  of  the  several 
denominations.  Recently  the  home  and  foreign  mis- 
sion study  programs  have  been  unified.1 

The  Sunday  School  World.  The  International  Sun- 
day School  Association,  from  motives  not  directly  so- 
cial, has  long  been  committed  to  the  uniform  lesson 
and  largely  to  standardized  methods  of  treatment.  Re- 
volts from  its  ideals  of  uniformity  in  the  more  pro- 
gressive communions  have  compelled  it  to  adapt  its  les- 

1  This  book  is  one  of  the  first  to  be  issued  under  the  joint  plan, 
which  contemplates  a  companion  volume,  The  Social  Aspects  of 
Foreign  Missions.  The  two  books  constitute  authorized  current 
study  material  for  the  entire  constituency  of  the  American 
Protestant  Church. 


212  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

son  material  to  the  different  ages;  and  incidentally 
have  reminded  us  of  the  need  to  keep  voluntary  initia- 
tive alive.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  Sunday-school 
has  been  one  of  the  most  successful  as  it  has  been  one 
of  the  most  conspicuous  spheres  of  Christian  coopera- 
tion. More  recently  cooperation  has  been  developed 
among  the  denominations  through  the  organization  of 
the  Sunday  School  Council  of  the  Evangelical 
Churches,  in  which  publishers,  editors,  lesson  writers, 
and  secretaries  unite  for  conference  on  common  prob- 
lems. 

Local  and  State  Federations.  Naturally  such  vast 
cooperative  agencies  of  national  scope  could  not  have 
originated  before  unity  in  work  had  first  been  tried 
out  in  smaller  areas  as  it  was  in  the  interchurch  federa- 
tions, particularly  of  some  of  the  New  England  states. 
Home  missions  in  actual  operation  are  largely  the  de- 
nominational machinery  of  state,  conference,  or  city. 
Unless  these  are  converted  to  the  practise  of  comity 
even  when  it  hurts,  resolutions  of  conventions  and 
exhortations  of  headquarters'  secretaries  can  have  little 
weight.  If  they  have  weight,  it  is  because  the  spirit 
and  practise  of  unity  are  widespread  in  the  American 
Church.  Thus,  thirteen  states  have  active  church  fed- 
erations, and  seven  more  have  more  or  less  rudimen- 
tary ones.  Wisconsin  furnishes  a  typical  example.  Its 
federation  originated  directly  in  the  social  motive.  It 
worked  out  its  own  solution  for  sectarian  overlapping, 
namely,  to  induce  competitive  churches  in  a  com- 
munity to  secure  a  joint  pastor,  while  retaining  their 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        213 

separate  organizations.  In  cases  of  conflicting  in- 
terests it  appoints  advisory  councils,  composed  of 
representatives  of  all  denominations,  and  submits  the 
case  to  them,  as  reflecting  the  wisdom  of  the  united 
Church  of  Christ. 

Exchange  of  Fields.  In  the  newer  Western  states, 
where  a  larger  proportion  of  churches  are  necessarily 
recipients  of  missionary  aid,  cooperative  movements 
naturally  fall  more  directly  under  the  leadership  of 
national  boards.  First  by  conferences,  modestly  called 
"Consultations,"  denominational  state  leaders  and  of- 
ficials have  been  skilfully  introduced  to  the  ideals  of 
working  comity;  then  after  thorough  surveys  of  con- 
ditions, institutes  are  being  held,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Home  Missions  Council,  in  which  experts  ad- 
vise as  to  the  redirection  of  the  whole  missionary  enter- 
prise and  the  strategic  redistribution  of  its  united 
forces.  Such  a  program  is  under  way  in  fifteen  states. 
Then,  the  situation  is  left  to  work  itself  out — not, 
it  must  be  confessed,  without  a  certain  "watchful 
waiting"  on  the  part  of  the  initiating  boards.  And 
it  does  often  work  out.  Thus,  in  October,  1913, 
representatives  of  three  of  the  strongest  denominations 
in  South  Dakota  met  and  agreed  upon  a  policy  of  the 
reciprocal  exchange  of  fields  in  order  to  prevent  the 
duplication  of  churches.  Forthwith,  the  Congregation- 
alists  surrendered  two  churches  and  their  outstations 
to  the  Methodists,  taking  in  exchange  five  Methodist 
points.  The  result  is  that  some  ten  communities, 
largely  in  the  newly-opened  Indian  country  west  of 


214  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

the  Missouri  River,  will  be  more  adequately  served 
with  the  gospel,  and  that  without  the  financial  and 
spiritual  strain  of  sectarian  rivalry.  And  similar 
processes  are  at  work  in  various  fields  from  Maine  to 
Washington. 

City  and  Country  Federations.  The  ultimate  sphere 
in  which  working  unity  is  to  be  practised  is,  of  course, 
local.  If  it  fails  with  actual  groups  of  neighboring 
churches,  it  fails  everywhere.  Crucial  importance, 
therefore,  attaches  to  the  local  federations  of  churches, 
usually  organized  with  the  city  or  the  country  as  a 
unit.  About  a  hundred  aggressive  organizations  of 
this  type  are  now  reported,  eighty-five  per  cent,  of 
which  have  originated  within  five  years.  Some  of 
them  are  affiliated  with  the  national  Federal  Council 
of  Churches,  and  operate  in  the  realm  of  public  opin- 
ion, or  unite  in  occasional  civic  interest  rather  than 
conduct  consistent  policies  of  church  extensions  and 
community  service.  Some  exist  preeminently  to 
give  the  churches  the  basic  sociological  information 
on  which  to  found  policies,  as  does  that  of  New  York 
City.  The  most  effective  local  federations,  however, 
directly  combine  the  home  missionary  agencies  of  the 
given  city  or  district,  both  in  the  positive  strategy  of 
unitedly  possessing  the  community  for  God,  and  the 
negative  strategy  of  keeping  out  of  each  other's  way 
while  doing  so.  After  all,  the  only  absolute  expres- 
sion of  working  unity  is  that  which  controls  budgets 
and  subsidies,  locates  institutions,  and  places  men 
unitedly.  This,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  and  other  of  our 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        215 

greater  cities  are  beginning  to  do,  basing  their  policies 
on  painstakingly  acquired  knowledge,  and  using  de- 
nominational interests  and  forces  merely  as  pawns  in 
the  high  game  of  applying  urban  Christianity  to  the 
actual  factors  in  home  mission  service. 

Social  Service  and  the  Federal  Council.  The  newly 
developed  activities  of  the  Church  in  the  interest  of 
social  amelioration  and  justice,  particularly  with  ref- 
erence to  the  living  and  working  conditions  of  wage- 
earners,  have  been  handled  in  various  ways  by  the 
different  denominations.  Some  have  attached  "social 
service"  departments  to  their  old  home  missionary 
boards;  others  have  created  new  agencies.  All  the 
chief  communions  have  them,  however,  and  virtually 
from  the  beginning  they  have  been  in  the  closest  work- 
ing alliance  through  the  national  Federal  Council,  in 
which  the  denominational  social  service  secretaries  con- 
stitute a  "cabinet."  Their  platforms,  methods,  investi- 
gations, and  publications  have  been  joint  labors,  imme- 
diately made  effective  in  common. 

Reuniting  Families.  Finally,  important  mergings 
of  denominational  families  are  under  way.  That  be- 
tween the  northern  Presbyterians  and  the  Cumberland 
Presbyterians  is  accomplished,  though  not  without  re- 
division  ;  that  between  the  United  Brethren  and  Meth- 
odist Protestants  is  in  hopeful  process  of  consumma- 
tion; that  between  the  Northern  and  Southern  Pres- 
byterians still  in  the  stage  of  preliminary  overtures 
and  joint  sessions.  The  Methodists,  North  and  South, 
have  a  Federal  Council  to  which  cases  of  possible 


216  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

cooperation  are  being  referred  for  adjustment.  They 
have  commissions  also  at  work  trying  to  define  their 
respective  spheres,  to  prevent  future  competition,  and 
to  plan  joint  advances,  and  in  the  North  the  regular 
and  Free  Baptists  are  now  happily  reunited.  Thus 
each  of  the  greater  denominational  families  is  seen  to 
be  in  the  process  of  reintegration. 

Unity  in  Far-reaching  Fields.  Summarizing  the 
fields  in  which  working  unity  is  largely  and  increas- 
ingly in  effect,  one  is  amazed  to  find  how  far-reaching 
it  is.  The  home  missionary  frontier  in  at  least  five 
sixths  of  its  extent;  the  newer  intensive  missions  to 
rural  life;  virtually  all  the  exceptional  peoples — In- 
dians, Orientals,  Negroes,  Mexicans;  denominational 
education  very  largely ;  missionary  publicity,  education, 
and  publication  on  a  nation-wide  scale;  city  evangeli- 
zation and  social  service ;  and  the  sectional  divisions  of 
churches  are  all  powerfully  moved,  if  not  practically 
controlled,  by  working  unity  as  a  current  practise  under 
highly  organized  agencies.  Its  program  is  theoretically 
universal;  its  realization  actually  astounding. 

How  Widely  Effective.  Some  of  the  sectional 
branches  of  the  Church  still  linger  outside  of  its  scope, 
and  the  great  Negro  sects  are  practically  little  touched 
by  it.  There  are  thousands  of  remote  communities 
steeped  in  the  sectarian  spirit  which  do  not  even  dream 
that  it  exists.  But  these  are  overmatched  by  equal 
thousands  of  communities  which  have  never  known 
sectarian  rivalry  because  they  have  always  been  served 
by  a  single  church  organization ;  and,  more  profoundly, 


SECRETARIAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE  COMMISSION  ON  THE 

CHURCH  AND  SOCIAL  SERVICE  OF  THE  FEDERAL 

COUNCIL  OF  THE  CHURCHES  OF  CHRIST  IN 

AMERICA 

Charles  ().  (Jill  I-rank  M    Crouch 

Harry  !•'.  Ward  Henry  A.  Atkinson 

Samuel  /.  It.illrn  Charles  S.  MaifarUnd 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        217 

by  the  super-sectarian  spirit  which,  thank  God,  has 
distinctly  pervaded  American  Christianity  in  spite  of 
its  divisions;  which  has  enabled  it  to  make  essentially 
a  unified  impression  upon  the  expanding  nation,  and 
to  assimilate  it  so  largely  to  the  Protestant  type. 

Permanent  Factors  of  Ecclesiastical  Organization. 
There  needs  to  be  a  deliberate  revolt  against  the  habit 
of  thought  which  takes  the  census  as  the  point  of  de- 
parture, and  goes  on  to  regard  the  Church  in  its  186 
denominational  divisions.  Just  as  staggering  and  as 
significant  columns  of  figures  could  be  arranged,  show- 
ing its  manifold  coordinating  and  cooperative  rela- 
tions, extradenominational,  interdenominational,  fed- 
eral, and  world-wide.  Under  the  impulse  of  social 
vision  these  have  become  the  essential  expression  of 
the  Church  to  tens  of  thousands. 

One-sided  Conception.  To  ignore  these  is  one- 
sided and  unscientific.  The  Christian  imagination  need 
not  be  so,  even  if  the  United  States  Census  is ;  and  the 
census  should  reform.  The  agencies,  organizations, 
and  movements  which  work  in  unity  are  as  much  a 
part  of  American  Christianity  as  the  sects  are,  while 
the  spirit  which  works  in  unity  is  native  to  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Christ,  in  which  there  is  no  place  at  all  for 
the  spirit  of  sect.  Facts  as  above  presented  are  enough 
to  provoke  the  spirit  of  song,  and  when  next  taunted 
with  the  weakness  and  waste  of  denominational  divi- 
sion the  up-to-date  Christian  may  at  least  retort,  "Like 
a  mighty  army  moves  a  large  part  of  the  Church  of 
God." 


218  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Social  Sectarianism  Still  at  Work.  How  much  fur- 
ther will  working  unity  carry  us?  That  question 
cannot  be  answered  by  itself  alone.  The  Church  can- 
not conquer  herself  for  Christian  unity  except  as  she 
also  conquers  society.  All  moral  problems  are  pro- 
foundly interrelated.  If  the  class  spirit  gets  a  per- 
manent upper  hand  in  America,  some  sect  will  incar- 
nate it,  and  live  on,  under  some  honored  but  misused 
name,  as  the  Church  of  the  rich,  or  of  the  intelligent, 
after  its  historic  or  doctrinal  origins  have  been  for- 
gotten. 

Racial  Lines  of  Cleavage.  The  Christian  Japanese 
of  the  West  are  close  to  the  edge  of  a  new  secta- 
rian division  from  the  American  churches  along 
racial  lines.  What  they  feel  to  be  an  attack  upon  their 
racial  self-respect  has  almost  impelled  them  to  sever 
the  denominational  relations  and  to  unite  .as  a  Japanese 
Church.  As  long  as  a  social  color-line  is  drawn,  a 
sectarian  color-line  may  be  expected  between  white 
and  Negro  denominations.  Our  swarming  immigra- 
tion from  eastern  and  southern  Europe  brings  to  us 
new  sects,  reflecting  their  petty  provincialisms,  their 
linguistic  differences,  and  their  obscure  doctrinal  dif- 
ferences. Thus,  the  greatly  useful  Lutheran  com- 
munion is  being  increasingly  broken  into  fragments. 
The  Greek  Catholic  Church  appears  in  four  divisions. 
The  number  of  linguistic  sects  is  thereby  increasing 
rather  than  diminishing,  and  except  as  the  foreigner 
is  assimilated,  sectarianism  as  a  divisive  and  disin- 
tegrating spirit  is  sure  to  increase  at  one  point  even 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        219 

while  we  conquer  it  at  another.  Indeed,  even  holding 
the  ground  we  have  already  gained  depends  upon  vic- 
tory all  along  the  line  against  all  the  unbrotherly  forces 
of  society.  Only  by  being  strong  enough  to  unite  all 
life  in  service  can  the  Church  unite  herself  in  service. 

After  Working  Unity.  Again,  will  working  unity 
carry  us  beyond  itself  to  some  form  of  organic  union 
embracing  all  denominations?  Let  it  be  insisted  that 
working  unity  is  unity — as  definite  and  concrete  an 
evidence  of  the  spiritual  oneness  of  the  Church  as 
sacrament  or  symbol,  and  a  very  much  more  signifi- 
cant one.  Yet  none  will  doubt  that,  if  working  unity 
is  accomplished,  she  will  feel  an  inner  necessity  to 
idealize  herself  in  some  fresh  outward  and  visible  con- 
fession of  the  one  Lord  and  the  one  faith.  What 
has  the  social  outlook  to  say  as  to  the  form  which  this 
instinct  will  probably  take? 

The  Psychology  of  Sect.  Here  enter  some  of  the 
obscurer  insights  of  the  social  psychologists  in  the 
study  of  sects.  They  think  they  discover  certain 
broad  differences  in  human  nature  within  the  Amer- 
ican population,  say  four  types  of  mental  make-up, 
the  areas  of  which  may  be  roughly  defined.  Thus, 
according  to  Giddings,  "the  'forceful'  congregate  about 
seaboard  and  lakeboard,  in  all  the  mountain  regions, 
and  on  the  great  plains.  The  'convivial'  predominate 
in  the  South.  The  'austere'  are  thickest  in  a  broad 
belt  reaching  from  New  England  to  Iowa  and  Kansas. 
The  'rationally  conscientious'  are  found  here  and 


220  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

there  in  cities."1  These  elemental  differences  the  so- 
cial psychologist  interprets  as  "natural  sects,"  whose 
differences  will  spontaneously  appear  in  separate  re- 
ligious expressions  and  organizations.  He  then  pro- 
ceeds to  tabulate  the  American  denominations  and 
to  assign  them  to  the  different  natural  sects  to  which 
they  correspond.  Naturally,  most  of  us  fall  between 
the  types,  and  none  may  feel  greatly  flattered  by  the 
scientists'  handling  of  his  own  case. 

Temperamental  Affinities.  The  least  discriminating 
however,  will  sense  the  contrast  between  the  more 
emotional  and  the  more  intellectual  denominations, 
and  confess  that  there  are  certain  Christians  with 
whom  he  feels  in  temperamental  affinity  and  others 
who  strike  him  as  somehow  alien.  Further,  the  so- 
cial psychologist  argues,  the  great  denominational 
families  correspond  roughly  to  the  natural  sects  and 
their  intermediate  types.  Only  let  them  reunite  and 
the  result  will  be  half  a  dozen  or  so  vast  and  master- 
ful branches  of  the  Church,  which  could  afford  to 
ignore  such  other  denominations  as  did  not  then  unite 
with  them  on  grounds  of  inner  similarity.2  Some- 
thing approximating  this  result  would  appear  to  be 
desirable  from  the  standpoint  of  social  effectiveness. 

Sect  and  Efficiency.  It  is  doubtful,  however,  wheth- 
er  social  effectiveness  would  prescribe  more  than 
a  working  unity  between  such  great  bodies.  Our  in- 
dustrial trusts,  we  are  finding,  have  often  succeeded 

*  Quoted  in  Ross,  Foundations  of  Sociology,  303. 

*  McComas,  Psychology  of  Religious  Sects,  227. 


REACTION  OF  HOME  MISSIONS        221 

in  spite  of  their  size  rather  than  because  of  it.  Some  of 
us  suspect  that  something  similar  is  true  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  A  denomination  might  easily  become 
of  unwieldy  size.  Dr.  Fisher  of  the  Laymen's  Mission- 
ary Movement  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
explains  the  failure  of  his  denomination  to  respond  as 
readily  as  others  to  the  appeal  for  a  missionary  ad- 
vance on  the  ground  that  it  is  so  much  larger  a 
mass  to  move.  Judging  by  the  criterion  of  efficiency 
rather  than  of  pride,  the  missionary  administrator 
would  be  slow  to  recommend  the  nation  as  the  work- 
ing unit.  So  large  a  unit  is  at  least  not  directly  in- 
dicated by  the  social  view-point  in  church  organiza- 
tion. 

A  Few  Denominations  and  Working  Unity.  If, 
therefore,  half  a  dozen  denominations  should  be  found 
necessary  to  express  the  more  permanent  and  natural 
psychological  differences  between  men,  it  would  not 
defeat  social  effectiveness  to  have  the  ultimate  Amer- 
ican Church  so  organized,  provided  always  that  the 
working  unity  which  we  have  even  now  in  fairly  com- 
plete outline  were  perpetuated  and  perfected. 

Spiritual  Unity.  Whether  men  utterly  commited  to 
fellowship  in  service  would  find  esthetic  fitness  and 
moral  concentration  in  erecting  some  further  inclusive 
order  of  the  visible  Church  the  future  will  determine. 
Such  a  united  Church  ruled  by  experts  and  social 
engineers  rather  than  by  ecclesiastics  might  escape 
some  of  its  ancient  perils.  Its  advantages  over  a 


222  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

harmonious  federation  of  denominational  families  will 
be  doubted  by  those  whose  temperaments  make  them 
willing  that  the  ecclesiastical  body  shall  have  members 
differing  sufficiently  one  from  another  to  remind  them 
that  their  Head  is  Christ  alone. 


SOCIAL    REALIZATION    OF    CHRISTIANITY 
IN  AMERICA 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SOCIAL  REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 
IN  AMERICA 

Making  the  Gospel  Operative.  The  religion  of  the 
New  Testament  is  a  seamless  robe  which  cannot  be 
divided.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  social  realization 
of  Christianity  standing  alone.  Not  any  nor  all  of  the 
forces  and  agencies  which  this  book  has  tried  to  inter- 
pret and  honor  can  make  the  gospel  operative  in 
our  land.  In  Browning's  "Death  in  the  Desert"  (to 
borrow  an  illustration  of  Dr.  Jowett's)  the  end  comes 
to  the  aged  apostle  John  while  hid  from  persecution 
in  a  cave  with  three  humble  converts  and  a  boy.  Lay- 
ing him  where  a  rift  of  light  plays  on  his  face  they 
try  to  rouse  him  for  a  last  farewell.  They  touch  his 
lips  with  wine,  cool  his  brow  with  water,  chafe  his 
hands  and  pray;  he  smiles  but  sleeps  on.  Then  the 
boy  springs  from  his  knees,  fetches  the  graven  tablet 
of  the  Gospel  and  pronounces,  "I  am  the  resurrection 
and  the  life" ;  whereat  the  old  man  rouses,  sits  up,  and 
speaks.  Humanity  is  that  aged  frame.  Social  serv- 
ice may  apply  the  stimulants  to  life — the  wine,  the 
water,  the  chafing  of  the  hands ;  personal  religion  may 
pray;  but  the  living  word  alone  can  stir  life  itself 

225 


226  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

afresh  and  make  it  to  triumph  in  all  the  measureless 
realm  of  being. 

Man  Bound  to  FaiL  No  improvement  of  environ- 
ment will  make  the  human  soul  commensurate  with  its 
largest  visions.  Discrepancy  there  will  still  be  between 
a  man  and  his  best;  humiliation  will  be  his  portion, 
with  the  experience  of  essential  failure  and  the  inces- 
sant sense  that  it  is  better  not  to  live  than  not  to  at- 
tain. In  its  profoundest  reaches  life  will  still  need 
a  redeeming  touch  deeper  than  any  social  ministry. 
Its  total  meaning,  birth  and  death,  its  early  and 
later  mysteries,  will  still  overwhelm;  nor  will  any 
"normality"  discovered  in  the  natural  cycles  of  life 
nor  the  best  balance  of  social  adjustment  dissolve  the 
paradox  of  sin.  Only  God  himself  can  wipe  away  all 
tears  from  human  eyes. 

Working  Together  with  God.  In  the  sense  of  these 
solemnities  the  whole  mighty  enterprise  and  enginery 
of  missions  is  struck  humble.  The  mood  of  going 
about  religious  service  as  about  a  business  utterly 
dissolves.  If  machinery  is  not  sufficient  for  ultimate 
things  it  is  not  sufficient  for  anything.  Life  is  of  one 
piece,  and  only  God  can  make  the  cooperation  of  its 
various  movements  work  out  into  final  blessedness. 
Home  missions  simply  offer  themselves  humbly  as 
the  bond-servant  of  Jesus  Christ,  for  social  utilization 
and  for  the  service  of  the  common  life. 

Comfort  in  Past  Results.  At  the  same  time  they  go 
about  their  remaining  tasks  strangely  comforted  in 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       227 

this  sense  of  inadequacy  by  the  consciousness  of  im- 
portant service  accomplished  in  the  past,  and  of  new 
knowledge  and  resources  for  the  future.  Missions 
have  overspread  the  continent  with  the  hearthstone 
and  the  spire.  They  have  invented  and  possessed 
themselves  of  original  forms  of  service  which  have 
worked  imperial  results  alike  under  the  control  of  old 
ideals  and  now  under  social  redirection.  They  have 
visioned  in  beauty  and  order  a  Paradise  Redeemed 
for  all  the  spacious  reaches  of  the  open  country ;  they 
have  seen  in  outline  a  completed  common  life  through 
the  mystic  potencies  of  the  city,  the  most  perfect  re- 
flection of  the  World  that  Shall  Be;  they  have  com- 
posed a  symphony  of  nations  out  of  the  babel  of  alien 
voices;  they  have  started  intelligent  and  far-reaching 
streams  of  social  justice  which  shall  yet  roll  down  like 
mighty  waters;  they  have  closed  up  the  deepest  racial 
gulfs  of  humanity  with  the  daring  of  fraternal  fellow- 
ship; they  have  made  even  the  Church  brotherly  and 
therefore  conquering!  These  things  they  have  done 
in  part,  even  as  all  human  service  is  yet  fragmentary. 

Facing  the  Final  Phase.  Now  home  missions  must 
undertake  the  final  phase  of  their  task,  namely,  the 
combination  of  these  fragments  of  success  into  a  more 
perfect  realization  of  Christianity  in  America  worthy 
to  be  presented  to  God  for  ultimate  completion. 

i.  Motive  and  the  Missionary.  The  social  real- 
ization of  Christianity  in  America  depends  upon  the 
control  of  personal  motive.  The  missionary  is  the  key 


228  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

to  missions;  and  the  missionary  is  one  whose  own 
heart  also  sends  him  upon  the  business  which  the 
Lord  appoints.  Even  to  operate  the  enginery  of  mis- 
sions which  the  Church  has  available  money  to  pay 
for,  there  is  desperate  lack  of  men.  Shortage  of  labor 
is  the  chief  spiritual  lack  as  it  is  the  chief  economic 
lack  of  the  Church.  "More  reapers"  is  still  the  groan 
and  travail-cry  of  fields  white  to  harvest. 

Growing  Social  Service  of  State.  But  the  field 
in  which  there  is  greatest  shortage  of  adequately  moti- 
vated lives  is  not  that  of  the  Church  but  of  the  state. 
Throughout  the  book  there  have  been  frequent  con- 
fessions of  the  relatively  limited  sphere  of  the  Church 
as  such  in  many  realms  of  constructive  social  effort. 
Measured  by  the  number  and  importance  of  social 
functions  performed,  the  Christian  state  has  been  rec- 
ognized as  the  chief  agent  of  the  social  application  of 
the  gospel.  Government  is  the  frequent  supplanter  of 
the  Church  in  ministries  which  were  once  ecclesiasti- 
cal, so  that  there  is  a  narrowing  of  the  outward  forms 
of  "religious"  service.  In  education,  in  libraries;  in 
the  technical  aspects  of  rural  betterment;  in  an  infin- 
itely varied  range  of  urban  activities;  in  schools  for 
Indians,  Negroes,  and  similar  backward  groups,  gov- 
ernment— local,  state,  and  national — is  doing  much 
which  the  Church  had  to  do  in  the  earlier  eras. 

Missionaries  of  the  State.  There  is  no  higher  call- 
ing of  God  than  to  serve  social  ends  through  the 
Christian  state.  On  the  other  hand,  the  serviceable- 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       229 

ness  of  politics  is  strictly  limited  by  the  quality  of  the 
men  it  can  summon  to  its  tasks.  There  are  many 
things — and  they  the  most  fundamental — which  the 
law  cannot  do  because  it  is  "weak  through  the  flesh." 
Its  greatest  weakness  is  in  the  control  of  motive. 
American  politics  have  not  directly  ministered  greatly 
to  morality.  The  vaster  the  social  structure,  the  more 
complicated  the  functions  it  has  to  perform,  the  more 
dependent  does  it  become  upon  the  power  which  drives 
its  social  machinery.  The  United  States  Bureau  of 
Indian  Affairs  has  hundreds  of  workers  under  civil 
service  regulations  to  carry  on  its  great  work,  and 
millions  of  money  to  spend.  Yet  so  keen  is  its  sense 
of  the  need  of  Christian  quality  in  its  service  that 
a  recent  Indian  Commissioner  began  a  deliberate  ap- 
peal to  the  same  students  who  became  volunteers  to 
the  foreign  missionary  field,  and  to  the  home  mission- 
ary agencies,  to  send  men  of  missionary  consecration 
to  take  the  civil  service  examinations.  In  the  whole 
range  of  social  ministry,  whatever  agency  does  the 
work,  the  Church  preeminently  must  inspire  and  pre- 
pare the  men. 

Conversion  and  Calling.  The  origin,  then,  and  the 
renewal  of  the  sources  of  motive  in  the  hearts  of 
Christians  who  may  serve  either  the  state  or  the 
Church  is  of  preeminent  concern.  The  Church,  as  has 
been  statistically  proved,  is  the  chief  present  source 
of  social  workers ;  religion  has  been  their  ultimate  in- 
spiration. Their  work  consists  mainly  in  drudgery  and 
in  many  of  its  experiences  tends  to  disillusion.  The 


230  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

discrepancy  between  social  ideals  and  our  present  con- 
trol of  conditions;  the  old  hardship  of  delay — that  we 
are  in  a  great  hurry  while  God  does  not  seem  to  be — 
constantly  throws  the  social  worker  back  into  depend- 
ence upon  the  original  basis  of  his  consecration  in 
definite  religious  experience.  Now  the  least  outworn 
of  religious  experiences — the  one  of  greatest  working 
value — is  unquestionably  that  of  thorough,  conscious, 
personal  conversion,  whereby  God  comes  into  specific 
possession  of  one's  life.  Most  lives  alternate  between 
hopes  and  fears,  between  doubts  and  certitudes. 
Hearts  beat  to  the  rhythm  now  of  weariness  and  wav- 
ering courage,  now  of  new  access  of  faith.  Our  sure 
warrant  in  these  vacillating  moods  is  the  memory 
of  moments  which  shone  by  their  own  inner  glory, 
untouched  by  the  waxing  or  waning  of  the  outer  day. 
"I  had  heard  of  thee  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear";  but 
spiritual  extremity  always  drives  one  back  upon  some 
self-evidencing  experience;  "but  now  mine  eye  seeth 
thee."  These  are  the  central  realities  whereby  men 
live,  upon  which  the  reformer  must  stand,  to  which 
the  prophet  must  return.  It  is  highly  important  then 
that  his  faith  should  be  deep-rooted,  that  in  the  initial 
experience  of  the  Christian  religion  there  shall  be  a  dis- 
tinctly social  aspect.  The  high,  creative,  personal  ex- 
perience of  redemption  should  have  its  strong  social 
coloring,  in  order  that  social  motive  in  the  completest 
degree  may  bear  the  fundamental  stamp  of  religion 
against  the  day  of  its  desperate  trial. 
Social  Fire.  Individual  Christian  experience  and  so- 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       231 

cial  passion  being  of  right  two  phases  of  one  experi- 
ence, it  follows  that  the  call  to  definite  personal  service 
and  to  the  vocation  of  the  missionary  in  a  day  of  social 
emphasis  should  have  social  fire  as  its  inmost  quality. 
The  forms  that  such  a  call  takes  in  the  lives  of 
the  youth  of  any  generation  are  largely  dependent  upon 
the  teaching  of  the  Church.  It  cannot  create,  but  it 
can  direct  the  divine  responses  of  unfolding  souls.  The 
summons  to  social  service  should  then  be  read  into 
the  profoundest  call  of  Christian  vocation.  The  mys- 
tical sense  and  deep  confession,  "I  know  the  Lord 
has  laid  his  hands  on  me,"  furnishes  the  only  certain 
and  steadying  basis  for  human  service.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  social  vision  greatly  reenforces  the  summons 
to  Christian  service.  Qualifications  for  social  service 
have  become  a  chief  test  of  the  missionary.  The 
fact  that  one  possesses  them  becomes  the 
most  definite  practical  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  Lord  has  truly  called  him.  The 
recruiting  agencies  of  the  Church  have  begun  to 
sound  the  social  emphasis  in  no  uncertain  tones.  Those 
who  look  for  missionary  volunteers  should  go  where 
social  enthusiasm  has  been  dominant  and  economically 
minded,  as  often  in  the  agricultural  college,  the  state 
university,  and  even  in  the  medical  or  technical  school. 
Prayer  and  the  Springs  of  Motive.  But  the  deepest 
preparation  and  enduement  of  the  missionary  is  the 
work  of  forces  too  fundamental  for  social  control. 
Spiritual  efficiency  and  power  are  unlocked  only  by 
the  mystic  key  of  prayer.  Education  is  of  the  schools, 


232  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

practical  efficiency  a  matter  of  working  plans  and  plant, 
and  men  may  be  hired  for  pay;  but  the  missionary 
spirit  is  born  and  nourished  only  in  an  atmosphere  of 
intercession,  in  which  personal  resolves  are  made  good 
and  personal  decisions  drawn  up  into  the  august  com- 
munions of  the  saints  around  the  throne  of  grace. 
Prayer,  then,  for  the  missionary — that  his  faith  and 
zeal  fail  not,  for  the  administrator  of  missions — that 
his  patience  and  judgment  fail  not,  for  the  support- 
ers of  missions — that  their  devotion  and  money  fail 
not,  is  indispensable  in  the  deeper  program  of  mis- 
sionary success.  The  missionary  is  the  key  to  mis- 
sions. Whoever  can  find  and  furnish  motive  to  this 
man  takes  the  first  step  in  the  social  realization  of 
Christianity  in  America.  This  is  a  preeminent  task  of 
the  Church  through  home  missions. 

2.  The  Kingdom  of  God.  The  social  realization  of 
Christianity  in  our  country  depends  also  upon  an  ade- 
quate restatement  of  Christian  doctrine.  To  make 
effective  the  social  leadership  of  Jesus  Christ  necessi- 
tates a  redirection  of  theology  and  its  rearrangement 
in  social  terms  around  Jesus'  teaching  of  the  king- 
dom of  God.  In  this  doctrine  he  freed  an  ancient  so- 
cial conception  from  centuries  of  limitations.  In  mak- 
ing it  the  central  tenet  of  his  thought  he  kept  it  so- 
cial, and  made  it  more  than  social,  expanding  it  till  it 
reached  up  into  all  the  realms  of  life.  He  taught  that 
the  kingdom  was  to  be  realized  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven.  He  took  good  care  that  this  concept  should 
not  be  too  greatly  entangled  with  the  current  social 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       233 

demands  of  his  own  time.  It  was  a  germinal  idea; 
a  life-giving  spirit,  the  definite  social  character  of 
which  he  made  perfectly  plain,  but  the  applications  of 
which  he  left  largely  to  each  generation.  We  must 
equally  preserve  the  very  atmosphere  of  this  doctrine 
of  Jesus,  and  must  press  its  detailed  claims  upon  our 
day.  God  Father ;  men  brothers !  God's  reign ;  man's 
social  life  expressing  it!  Let  the  divine  simplicity  of 
it  stand,  unvexed  by  economic  or  theological  subtle- 
ties. This  will  leave  the  doctrine  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  perfectly  open  to  the  most  concrete  and  practical 
uses  of  the  present  day.  When  home  missions  under- 
take to  check  the  cotton-boll  weevil  or  to  eradicate 
the  cattle  tick  in  a  given  community,  they  get  their  war- 
rant straight  from  the  gospel,  in  which  Jesus  purpose- 
fully imbedded  his  social  principle  knowing  well  that 
it  would  be  needed  for  unimaginable  uses  in  every 
future  day. 

Spiritual  Basis  of  Fraternity.  As  it  flows  out  into 
the  doctrine  of  universal  brotherliness,  it  is  the  par- 
ticular task  of  the  social  gospel  to  correct  and  com- 
plete the  crude  and  often  materialistic  formula  of 
equality  which  has  played  so  large  a  part  in  the  social 
hopes  of  the  modern  masses.  In  a  day  when  the 
Church  has  had  her  doubts  as  to  the  efficacy  of  doc- 
trine, socialistic  doctrine,  backed  by  antiquated  philos- 
ophies and  misunderstood  science,  has  been  the  staff 
of  life  to  millions  of  crude  but  effective  thinkers  upon 
social  justice.  Largely  outside  of  the  academic  influ- 
ences, socialism  in  its  various  versions  has  flourished 


234  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

through  the  dogmatic  method.  Banished  from  the 
pulpit,  dogma  finds  a  forum  in  the  streets,  and  flour- 
ishes from  dry-goods  boxes  and  the  tails  of  carts.  The 
moral  passion  which  has  been  behind  it  shames  the 
frequent  lukewarmness  of  the  Church.  To  interpret 
its  very  real  aspirations  for  fraternity  into  the  terms 
of  Christian  brotherhood,  to  show  how  equality  can 
only  be  realized  through  the  enthusiastic  sense  of 
membership  in  the  body  of  Christ,  is  the  mediatorial 
office  of  the  Christian  thinker,  and  will  be  on  through 
the  centuries.  The  man  who  can  direct,  order,  and 
convince  the  great  outstanding  categories  of  social 
thought  according  to  the  mind  of  Christ  has  a  mission 
second  to  none.  Not  necessarily  apart  from  daily 
deeds  of  social  value,  and  frequently  in  connection  with 
the  practical  tests  of  administrative  duties,  but  always 
magnifying  and  controlled  by  the  interpretive  gift, 
this  man  fulfils  his  office  under  the  one  Spirit.  Home 
missions  have  large  share  in  the  social  realization  of 
Christianity  through  their  servants  who  can  think  ef- 
fectively. 

3.  A  New  Creation.  The  social  realization  of 
Christianity  in  America  depends  moreover  upon  a 
warm-hearted  faith  in  lowly  men.  The  old  home 
missions  dealt  more  largely  with  their  own  sons  and 
daughters  of  the  Church  in  their  Westward  migration. 
The  new  home  missions  have  more  largely  upon  their 
heart  the  stranger  and  those  far  off,  historically  and 
racially.  In  the  difficult  problems  of  their  assimila- 
tion to  the  nation's  deepest  life,  a  controlling  and  un- 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       235 

failing  faith  is  impossible  apart  from  the  ever-burning 
fires  of  personal  experience.  One  knows  in  himself 
the  power  of  the  gospel  to  make  him  greater  than  he 
was.  Faith  simply  transfers  the  certainty  of  this  ex- 
perience from  the  redeemed  man  to  the  remotest 
brother  in  whose  redemption  he  labors.  This  is  the 
apostolic  order  of  statement:  "You  did  he  make 
alive,"  and  therefore  you  can  understand  social  conse- 
quences of  the  life-giving  gospel  to  the  Gentiles.  To 
the  man  in  fundamental  doubt  as  to  his  brother's  full 
human  quality  and  capacity,  especially  to  the  man  suf- 
fering the  extreme  forms  of  race  prejudice, — religion 
is  the  only  effective  approach.  Argument  is  a  blunt 
weapon;  science  is  helpless  before  stubbornness;  but 
show  a  man  that  the  lowliest  Christian  is  possessed 
of  the  same  spiritual  life  which  he  knows  himself,  and 
you  make  all  arbitrary  limitations  and  divisions  for- 
ever impossible ;  all  essential  fellowships  forever  neces- 
sary. "For  he  is  our  peace,  who  .  .  .  brake  down 
the  middle  wall  of  partition."  The  Christian  life  in 
lowly  men  is  just  as  revolutionary  as  the  New  Testa- 
ment represents  it  to  be.  A  class  or  a  race  with  this 
experience  is  a  new  creation.  For  it  old  things  have 
passed  away.  It  is  no  longer  a  question  of  the  natural 
powers  or  capacities  of  men.  For  the  entire  human 
race  the  central  fact  is  the  re-creation  and  reinter- 
pretation  of  life  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  development 
of  new  moral  forces  through  his  leadership;  "By  the 
one  spirit  are  we  all  baptized  into  the  one  body, 
whether  we  be  bond  or  free." 


236  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

Missions  at  Home.  Home  missions  themselves 
have  not  always  accorded  full  and  equal  membership 
in  the  body  of  the  nation  and  of  Christ  to  those  whom 
we  think  to  be  "less  honorable,  more  feeble,  un- 
comely." The  denominations  have  differed  greatly  in 
their  fidelity  to  the  needs  of  the  Negro,  Indian,  and 
other  non-European  groups,  as  measured  by  the  pro- 
portion of  money  and  men  expended  in  their  behalf. 
Home  missions  as  denominational  church  extension 
have  flourished  throughout  the  field,  but  the  peoples 
who  could  not  recompense  the  church  in  conspicuous 
success  or  rapid  growth  have  sometimes  been  forgot- 
ten. It  is  necessary  then,  sometimes  at  least,  to  make 
distinctions  within  the  home  missionary  field  itself  and 
to  discriminate  between  home  missions  and  missions  at 
home.  Thus  "missions  at  home"  may  stand  for  the 
vast  work  for  remoter  and  non-European  aliens  under 
our  flag,  which  in  problem  and  method  is  essentially  a 
duplicate  of  foreign  missions.  So  much  is  this  true 
that  many  branches  of  such  work,  though  on  American 
soil,  are  still  conducted  by  the  foreign  boards  of 
certain  denominations.  Since  all  the  deeper  bases  of 
civilization  are  lacking  with  such  peoples,  social  serv- 
ice for  them  has  to  mean,  not  so  much  the  rectifying 
of  bad  conditions,  as  the  creation  of  fundamental  social 
relations.  The  civilized  home,  the  modern  social  com- 
munity, every  deeper  aspect  of  the  common  life  have 
to  be  refounded  as  well  as  nourished  and  directed. 
Farm,  shop,  and  kindergarten  have  to  precede  the  more 
highly  organized  and  ecclesiastical  forms  of  religious 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       237 

institutions.  Relatively  speaking,  such  poor  and  lowly 
people  can  do  little  for  themselves  financially,  and  their 
missions  will  cost  proportionately  more;  also  results 
will  be  slower.  Yet  effective  loyalty  to  home  missions 
means  loyalty  to  them  in  the  persons  of  the  least  of 
these  our  brethren.  Man  for  man,  home  for  home, 
community  for  community,  they  represent  the  most 
desperate  of  America's  needs  for  brotherly  bounty  and 
friendship. 

Loving  and  Liking.  But  service  is  not  all  we  owe 
them :  there  is  the  deeper  debt  of  appreciation.  A  sen- 
sitive and  welcoming  recognition  that  the  American 
Church  is  genuinely  reenforced  by  the  new  moral 
powers  born  in  lowly  peoples  and  races  is  the  finest 
exercise  of  social  faith.  It  is  the  most  vital  test  of 
spritual  discrimination  in  a  too  complacent  Church. 
That  we  are  receivers  as  well  as  givers,  that  we  need 
the  alien  and  stranger  with  their  fresh  inspirations, 
young  hearts,  and  novel  glow  of  ideals  is  one  of  the 
greatest  social  discoveries  of  American  Christianity 
through  home  missions. 

4.  Home  and  Foreign  Missions.  The  social  reali- 
zation of  Christianity  in  America  depends  again  upon 
the  naturalization  of  Christianity  in  every  nation.  It  is 
not  enough  that  we  be  reenforced  by  the  gifts  and  graces 
of  the  new  or  varied  peoples  who  throng  our  borders. 
Redemption  is  a  world-wide  task.  The  redemption  of 
our  land  will  come  through  the  fellowships  of  a  world- 
wide task,  and  not  alone  through  our  fellowship  of 
missionary  service  in  foreign  lands.  We  live  in  an 


238  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

age,  not  only  of  stupendous  migrations  of  peoples,  but 
of  stupendous  movements  which  both  ebb  and  flow. 
From  other  shores  they  come  to  us;  to  other  shores 
from  us  they  go.  And  far  more  potent  than  the 
momentous  recessional  of  returning  pilgrim  feet  is  the 
still,  small  voice  of  new  ideas  which  he  whispers  back 
to  his  old  home,  and  which  ink  and  steel,  vibrant  wire 
and  thrilling  ether  echo  to  every  corner  of  the  earth. 
Home  missions  and  foreign  missions  merge  and  inter- 
penetrate as  nations  move  backward  and  forward 
among  the  continents  and  pass  from  moral  zone  to 
moral  zone.  The  typical  missionary  sits  no  more  in 
distant  loneliness,  but  stands  on  the  crowded  highway 
of  nations  and  sends  daily  greetings  to  his  brother 
across  the  world  by  the  emigrant  who  passes  nis 
door. 

Utilizing  World  Experience.  What  America  needs 
to  complete  her  social  version  of  the  gospel  in  action 
can  only  be  discovered  for  her  as  the  outcome  of  so- 
cial experiments  in  Christianity  as  naturalized  in  the 
East  and  the  South  and  wrought  out  in  practise  by 
the  genius  of  the  darker  races  under  the  direction  of 
the  indigenous  spirit.  Foreign  missions  must  give  way 
to  the  home  missions  of  Asia  and  Africa.  Two 
divine  calls  are  theirs,  of  ec[ual  moment  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  nations:  first,  the  call  to  go;  second,  the 
call  to  come  away.  First,  they  must  evangelize  the 
people;  second,  naturalize  the  gospel  by  the  thorough 
founding  of  the  native  Church.  Then  the  work  of 
foreign  missions  is  over.  Where  foreign  missions  end, 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       239 

home  missions  begin.  All  deeper  issues  must  be  faced, 
all  ultimate  social  applications  of  the  gospel  for  Asia 
and  Africa  made  by  the  native  Church  conducting  its 
own  home  missions  into  social  fields  under  the  guidance 
of  the  one  Spirit,  dividing  insight  and  efficiency  to 
each  several  race  and  continent  even  as  he  will. 

Process  of  Give  and  Take,  Then  will  begin  that 
final  process  of  give  and  take  between  the  home  mis- 
sionary fields  of  earth  which  will  make  world  experi- 
ence available  for  all  and  give  social  Christianity  its 
widest  induction  and  its  broadest  catholicity.  Those 
social  ultimates,  the  family,  the  Church,  the  state,  will 
get  their  final  form  from  the  experiences  of  the  total 
human  race.  Faith  and  brotherhood  will  get  world 
reenforcement  and  world  definition.  Till  that  day  they 
remain  fragmentary  even  for  us.  Christian  society 
must  mean  the  permeation  of  the  common  life  of  the 
whole  earthly  family  of  God.  It  can  never  be  realized 
in  America  alone.  Apart  from  all  the  rest  we  shall 
not  be  made  perfect 

5.  Whose  Is  the  Church?  The  social  realization 
of  Christianity  in  America  depends  upon  the  Church's 
radical  and  sincere  repentance  of  her  social  isola- 
tion. She  needs  not  only  the  gifts  of  comers 
from  all  lands,  and  the  graces  which  can  bloom  only 
in  other  lands  where  Christ  has  become  their  very 
own:  she  needs  as  well,  yea,  first,  the  worth  and  loy- 
alty of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  in  our  own 
America.  The  Church  has  position,  wealth,  technical 
resources,  and  ideals  largely  because  it  has  received  an 


240  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

unearned  increment  from  the  land  and  a  monopoly  ad- 
vantage from  industry.  These  have  unlocked  all  the 
higher  treasures  of  civilization.  The  Church  has  ex- 
perienced the  profitableness  of  godliness  and  proved 
the  permanent  relations  which  exist  between  thrift  and 
virtue  and  success.  It  is  the  Church  of  people  whose 
fathers  worked  hard;  the  farmer's  Church  and  the 
small  capitalist's  Church ;  the  institution  of  the  achiev- 
ing older  population  which  got  hold  of  natural  re- 
sources first. 

Wealth  to  Be  Democratized.  The  Church  is  to  be 
honored  rather  than  blamed  for  this  condition.  She 
cannot  permanently  raise  any  one  to  her  own  position 
of  advantage  except  through  the  same  discipline  and 
on  the  same  terms  of  character.  What  troubles  her 
peace  is  the  verified  suspicion  that  late  comers  of  equal 
capacity  and  likelihood  of  character  have  not  now 
the  same  advantage  to  capitalize  their  virtues  in  the 
acquirement  of  wealth  and  position.  It  is  for  the 
Church  therefore  to  repent  of  her  exclusive  advantage 
and  to  put  an  end  to  it.  Christian  wealth  must  be 
democratized — not  by  arbitrary  equalization  or  divi- 
sion— but  by  the  development  of  a  juster  social  order 
which  will  rapidly  equalize  it;  by  the  control  of  wages 
and  profits,  by  taxation  and  by  exacting  standards 
of  Christian  stewardship  in  the  use  of  property. 

An  Old  Virtue  to  the  Front.  Taxes  must  be  re- 
stored to  the  place  of  preeminent  virtue  which  they 
occupied  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  Church  must 
cease  to  misquote,  as  exhortations  to  Christian  char- 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       241 

ity,  Scriptures  whose  first  application  was  to  the  politi- 
cal duty  of  taxpaying.  But  taxation  must  be  in- 
terpreted religiously  in  the  light  of  the  best  Christian 
and  modern  social  emphasis.  Giving  must  be  carried 
out  in  humility  and  repentance.  Benevolence  must  take 
a  third  place  in  the  catalog  of  social  virtues.  If  taxes 
come  first,  personal  service  comes  second,  and  the  giv- 
ing of  money  only  third.  Of  these  three  the  greatest 
is  taxes.  But  benevolence  has  still  its  place  and  in 
the  support  of  the  voluntary  Church  and  its  vast  train 
of  missionary  and  human  enterprises  it  is  the  central 
one.  It  is  preeminently  the  virtue  which  makes  home 
missions  possible.  In  all  its  uses  benevolence  must  put 
on  humility.  Only  humility  and  works  meet  for  re- 
pentance can  take  away  the  taint  which  clings  to  too 
much  missionary  money. 

Keeping  Goodness  Good.  The  Church's  ideals 
must  be  democratized;  she  must  be  humble  in  her 
moral  superiorities;  she  must  repent  of  her  frequent 
sunderings  from  the  masses,  even  when  their  separa- 
tions have  been  partly  due  to  the  higher  personal  ideals 
and  the  finer  individual  conduct  of  the  church-member. 
None  of  these  elements  of  goodness  can  even  remain 
good  without  their  recombination  with  the  more  ro- 
bust and  modern  excellencies  of  social  morality,  in 
which  often  enough  the  religious  teacher  needs  to  sit 
at  the  feet  of  the  trade-unionist,  and  the  rural  saint  to 
go  to  school  to  the  city  child.  Only  the  speediest 
spread  and  equalization  of  the  moral  advantages  of 
the  Church  can  keep  them  from  decay.  The  presence 


242  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

of  this  deep  mood  of  repentance  in  the  fundamental 
thinking  of  home  missions  is  a  necessary  condition 
of  the  social  realization  of  Christianity  in  America. 

6.  Environment  and  the  Average  Christian.  The 
social  realization  of  Christianity  in  America  de- 
pends, finally,  upon  an  effective  strategy  of  social 
control.  The  Church  is  committed  through  the  home 
missionary  enterprise  to  a  social  program  confessedly 
in  advance  of  the  average  conscience.  Just  as  mis- 
sions propose  to  organize  an  uplifting  environment  for 
the  socially  depressed  people;  just  as  they  try  to  re- 
deem the  young  criminal  by  putting  him  in  a  com- 
munity of  higher  ideals;  so  missions  propose  to  or- 
ganize an  uplifting  environment  for  the  average  Chris- 
tian in  which  his  collective  will  may  function  more 
generously  and  wisely  than  his  individual  will  would 
do.  The  individual  Christian  is  immensely  dependent 
upon  the  moralizing  pressure  of  the  collective  religious 
life.  This  is  only  to  say  that  he  is  truly  a  member 
of  a  spiritual  body  of  which  the  Church  is  the  visible 
organ.  The  Church  is  in  a  strategic  position  of  social 
advantage.  As  an  organization  it  is  greatly  in  con- 
trol of  the  moral  atmosphere  of  its  adherents.  Its 
deep  power  over  them  was  shown  by  its  former  ability 
to  put  upon  them  a  sectarian  stamp.  It  achieved  this 
end  only  by  ceaseless  education.  It  now  sets  itself  to 
put  a  social  stamp  upon  the  mind  and  conduct  of  its 
members,  to  do  which  it  must  still  ceaselessly  educate 
under  a  redirected  social  impulse. 

Religious  Education.     In  its  larger  social  expression 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       243 

religious  education  uses  the  pulpit,  the  Sunday- 
school,  and  the  manifold  agencies  of  public  opinion. 
It  involves  a  modern  use  of  the  Bible  as  a  book  of 
social  invention  and  adventure;  as  an  instrument  for 
the  guidance  of  social  experiment,  and  not  as  a  reposi- 
tory of  doctrine  or  a  completed  code  of  social  laws. 
Religious  education  embraces  and  must  direct  the  con- 
crete study  of  social  issues  and  must  interpret  the  so- 
cial surveys  which  have  been  explained  as  the  current 
method  of  approach  to  social  duty.  Finally,  religious 
education  must  include  mission  study  as  the  record  of 
the  outstanding  achievements  of  the  Church,  both 
social  and  spiritual,  both  at  home  and  abroad.  Thus 
it  becomes  one  of  the  essential  elements  in  the  strategy 
of  Christian  conquest. 

Constructive  Statesmanship.  Home  missions  have 
made  the  Church  one  of  the  chief  factors  in  American 
social  life.  The  Church  in  turn  recognizes  and  sup- 
ports home  missionary  organizations  as  one  of  the 
chief  devices  of  social  progress  and  control.  Among 
the  greatest  triumphs  of  modern  invention  are  the  so- 
cial organizations  which  the  new  age  has  originated. 
In  their  local  and  national  phases,  expressed  either  in 
the  men  that  they  control,  the  money  that  they  use, 
or  the  influence  which  they  wield,  organized  home 
missions  rank  with  the  trusts  or  the  trade-unions  as 
one  of  the  first-rate  social  achievements  of  the  genera- 
tion. With  their  experts,  their  increasingly  precise 
technique,  their  ability  to  dispose  their  vast  forces  as 
to  time,  place,  and  need,  and  especially  in  their  coop- 


244  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

erative  results — interdenominational  and  interna- 
tional— they  reach  the  highest  constructive  statesman- 
ship. They  are  the  most  efficient,  dominant,  and 
highly  Christianized  of  agencies  for  planting  the  king- 
dom of  God  on  the  soil  of  America. 

America  Becoming  Christian.  Among  the  most  en- 
viable of  men  is  that  group  of  missionary  administra- 
tors whose  part  it  is,  in  behalf  of  the  Church,  to  know 
these  United  States  in  their  social  and  Christian  prob- 
lems and  potencies,  from  end  to  end,  and  from  top  to 
bottom.  Probably  they,  as  no  one  else,  understand 
the  redirection  of  patriotism  and  affection  involved  in 
the  social  vision  of  the  home  missionary  task. 

A  Land  of  Natural  Charms.  To  know  any  part  of 
our  land  is  to  love  it.  The  white  birches  silhouetted 
against  the  dark  hemlocks  on  the  New  England  hill- 
side; the  tender  little  creeping  greenery  delicately  em- 
broidering the  feet  of  the  Adirondack  forest;  the 
meeting  of  rugged  highland  and  misty  marshes  at 
the  nation's  greatest  gateway,  and  the  mighty  stretch 
of  reddening  sunrise  over  the  waving  marsh  grasses 
up  and  down  all  our  coastal  plain;  the  widespread 
shade  of  the  live  oaks  draped  with  Spanish  moss, 
equally  stir  and  engage  the  affections  of  one  whose 
parish  is  the  nation.  The  lapping  deep-green  waters 
of  the  Great  Lakes;  the  dotted  farms  and  forests  of 
the  interior  wreathed  in  the  smoke  of  factory  chim- 
neys; the  steep  bridle  paths  of  the  Southern  Appalach- 
ians winding  under  majestic  chestnut  and  mighty 
beech;  the  smiling  cotton  fields  of  the  Southern  up- 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       245 

lands  and  plains  enclosed  in  a  framework  of  pine  tree 
and  vine, — all  are  the  familiar  furnishing  of  home 
to  one  who  lives  wherever  the  flag  flies.  The  shimmer 
of  sunlight  over  the  prairie ;  the  rich  yellow  of  wheat 
ripe  for  harvest ;  the  smoking  gray  of  the  new-turned 
prairie  sod;  and  then  the  high  plains  southward  over 
ranch  and  mine,  to  where,  against  the  serrated  back- 
ground of  mountains,  the  cactus  towers -as  the  sand- 
like  pillars  in  the  ruins  of  Karnak,  and  the  day-long 
mirage  mocks  one  day  after  day, — each  has  a  mystic 
compulsion  over  the  heart  of  one  who  knows  them  all. 
From  the  white  peaks  of  the  farther  Rockies ;  from  the 
Cascades  forested  somberly  by  the  firs ;  from  the  stark 
grandeur  of  the  high  Sierras  to  the  virile  beauty  of 
the  Golden  Gate,  and  the  smiling  gardens  and  orchards, 
with  the  ancient  missions  slumbering  in  the  mellow 
light  between  the  foothills  and  the  unutterably  white 
surf  of  the  Pacific, — our  land  is  goodly  to  know  and 
to  call  ours. 

A  Land  of  Human  Splendor.  But  infinitely  the 
most  beautiful  part  of  America — the  most  majestic, 
alluring,  and  passionately  compelling  is  its  wealth  of 
people  and  of  divine  incentives  to  brotherliness.  Ours 
is  a  land  of  human  splendor,  passing  increasingly 
under  the  mastery  of  Jesus  Christ.  To  miss  this  is  to 
miss  all;  and  how  often  it  is  missed! 

Barrier  of  the  Unfamiliar.  Confession  perhaps 
may  best  serve  the  case  at  this  point.  Once  on  a 
vacation  ramble  in  Vermont,  I  experienced  one  of  the 
most  dramatic  surprises  of  my  life.  Following  a 


246  THE  NEW  HOME  MISSIONS 

mountain  path,  I  seemed  to  hear  the  voice  of  angry, 
quarreling  men.  My  mind  pictured  a  drunken  crowd, 
carousing  in  the  woods,  and  I  would  have  turned 
aside  if  I  could.  Persisting,  however,  I  came  upon  a 
group  of  Slavic  folk  picking  blackberries;  mothers 
with  little  children  at  their  breasts,  garrulous  grand- 
mothers, maidens,  brothers,  and  lovers — all  peaceful, 
domestic,  innocent.  And  the  violent  brutal  words 
which  I  had  heard  were  the  most  dulcet  tones  of  the 
Itskys  and  Ozskys.  /  had  never  heard  them  before. 
Yet  in  that  tongue  mild  mothers  had  crooned  their 
babes  to  sleep  for  centuries ;  man  had  wooed  maid ;  God 
had  heard  prayers.  The  excuse,  therefore,  that  I  had 
never  heard  it  before  lacked  something  of  cogency, 
partook  somewhat  of  stupidity  and  provincialism.  Yet 
for  less  cause  age-long  animosities  have  been  cherished. 
Herodotus  thought  the  barbarous  tongue-tied,  so 
strange  their  language  sounded  to  him.  And,  at  the 
bottom  of  their  minds,  millions  of  men  imagine  that 
those  who  differ  from  them  by  some  superficiality  of 
color,  voice,  or  mental  pace  really  suffer  some  positive 
defect,  or  at  least  somehow  lack  complete  humanity. 

The  Bond  of  Peace.  For  the  lack  of  this  keen 
and  compelling  sense  of  inner  likeness  and  fraternity, 
Christianity  fails  of  social  realization  in  America. 
Separated  by  our  vast  divergencies  of  origin  and  tra- 
ditions; kept  asunder  by  the  vast  extent  and  physical 
variety  of  our  country,  how  desperate  the  need  of  a 
unifying  spirit,  of  a  bond  of  peace!  How  wonder- 
ful to  know  and  to  testify,  of  personal  knowledge,  that 


REALIZATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       247 

everywhere  middle  walls  of  partition  are  breaking 
down  and  men  being  made  one  in  the  blood  of  the 
cross;  that  out  of  every  tribe  and  tongue  and  people 
and  nation  the  transformation  into  kings  and  priests 
unto  God  is  under  way. 

Privilege  and  Task.  The  people  under  God  are 
the  strength  and  glory  of  the  land.  A  mighty  land — 
to  glimpse  whose  future  is  to  share  a  mission  with  the 
stars ;  to  control  whose  destinies  is  to  stand  within  the 
grip  of  the  right  hand  of  the  omnipotent  God.  What 
then  lovingly  and  faithfully  to  follow  and  to  serve 
all  the  strange  and  complicated  paths  of  social  duty 
into  the  furthest  recesses,  the  uttermost  nooks  and 
crannies  of  human  relationship;  to  control  their  inner 
qualities  and  applications  as  well  as  their  outer  exhibi- 
tions and  forms!  What  then  to  occupy  this  land  for 
Christ,  not  f  ragmentarily  as  the  field  has  won  upon  the 
forest,  nor  fitfully,  as  the  wind  sweeps  over  the  prai- 
ries, but  searchingly,  engulfingly,  as  the  waters  cover 
the  sea !  What  then  to  share  in  thy  social  realization 
of  Christianity,  O  country  of  our  love! 


*And  crown  thy  good  with  brotherhood, 
From  sea  to  shining  sea." 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


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Dickinson,  Charles  H.    The  Christian  Reconstruction  of  Modern 

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INDEX 


INDEX 


Abolition  talk,  44 
Academy,  democracy  of  the,  41 
Adams,  Dr.  E.  A.,  122 
Admission  of  Western  States  to 

the  Union,  5 

American  Bible  Society,  39 
American  Church,  chief  business 

of,  45;  future  task,  46 
American  Home  Missionary  So- 
ciety, 15 

American  rule  in  Porto  Rico,  168 
American  Tract  Society,  39 
American  sects,  origins  of,  196, 

197 
"Americanization  of  the  World," 

26 
Amherst,  a  proposed  center  for 

training  rural  pastors,  68 
Andover   Theological   Seminary 

essay,  quoted,  14 
Anniversaries,  uses  of,  74 
Anthropology   and    the    Negro, 

i?3 

Aristotle,  quoted,  179 
Armageddon,  the  racial,  172 
Advantages  of  city  life,  97-100 
Agriculture,  as  affected  by  horse- 
power machinery,  12,  13;  new 
idealistic  note,  64;  problem  of 
a  ministry  adapted  to  present 
needs,  66-76 
Agriculture,  Illinois  College  of, 

64 

Alfalfa,  87 

Alien,  the,  assimilation  of,  124, 
125;   first  problems  of,   113; 


revulsion  of  older  popula- 
tions from,  115 

Aliens  and  "barbarians"  on  the 
upper  Missouri,  135,  136 

Assimilation  of  aliens,  124,  125 

Atlantic  Monthly,  quoted,  4 

Automobile,  52,  71 


B 


Band  of  settlers,  a  typical,  19 

Bank,  first  in  at  opening  of  a 
reservation,  52;  in  plan  of 
community  center,  72 

Baptists,  17,  133 

Baseball  should  be  a  factor  in 
rural  play,  73 

Bible,  lack  of,  10;  plans  for  cir- 
culation, 39;  value  of  in 
Protestant  view,  40;  Biblical 
chairs,  67 

Birmingham,  Ala.,  133 

Blackburn,  Dr.  Gideon,  19,  36 

Black  Hawk  strip,  40 

Boas,    Professor  Franz,  quoted, 

T,  I73'  -174 

Bohemia,  122 

Books,    poverty    in,    of    early 

Mississippi  Valley  region,  39, 

40 

Boy  Scouts,  74 
Brotherhood,  the  fact  of,   183- 

186 

Brown,  E.  E.,  quoted,  41 
Browning,   Robert,  referred  to, 

225 
Buckley,  James  M.,  16 


259 


260 


INDEX 


Buddhism,  165 
Burleson,  H.  L.,  16,  46 


Call  to  home  mission  work,  230 

Camp  Fire  Girls,  74 

Campbell,  Alexander,  197 

Canaan,  contrasted  accounts  of 
conquest  of,  191 

Capital  and  industry,  130,  131 

Capitalist,  a  mountaineer,  79 

Cartwright,  Peter,  33 

Carver,  Professor  T.  N.,  chal- 
lenge of,  78;  quoted,  12,  21,  51 

Case  of  social  failure,  200 

Catalog  of  social  ideals,  147 

Cattle  tick,  87;  mountain  men 
and  the,  49,  53 

Census  views,  217 

Champaign,  111.,  a  center  of 
agricultural  education,  67 

Charity  Organization  Societies, 
148 

Child  labor,  84;  Committees, 
148;  in  the  country  home,  74 

Child,  old-time  city  and  country, 
100 

Chinese  immigrant,  the,  163 

Christ.     See  Jesus  Christ 

Christian  Reconstruction  in  the 
South,  181 

Church,  the,  as  respects  Ameri- 
can social  life,  243;  fields  of, 
76;  problems  of,  64 

Church  school,  ideal  of  the  early, 
40 

Cities  of  the  stranger,  112,  113 

Citizen,  the,  100 

City  church,  conditions  in,  101- 
105;  family  type,  103;  for 
foreign-speaking  people,  105 

City,  glory  of,  97;  reason  for,  94; 
shame  of,  96;  some  statistics, 

93 

City  life,  advantages  of,  97-100 

City's  machinery,  96 

Civil  War,  some  results  of,  24 


Claim  outlining  in  the  North- 
west, 51 

Clannishness,  in 
Clark,  Joseph  B.,  quoted,  15  | 
Coal  deposits,  83 
Colorado  Survey,  202 
Colored  Farmers'  Courty  Fair, 

85 
Community  and  the  Citizen,  The, 

35 
Community,  bank,  center, 

church,      creamery,      school, 

store,  72 
Community  -  minded        church 

needed  in  the  country,  72 
Community  spirit,  71,  72 
Community,  the  transplanted,  33 
Congregational  Church,  1 1 
Congregationalism,  22,  133 
Connecticut  Missionary  Society, 

the,  ii 
Conquest    of   national    domain 

completed  by  home  missions, 

So 
Conquest  of  the  Continent,   The, 

16,46 

Conscience,  the  modern  Chris- 
tian, 143 

Consolidated  school,  72 
Constitution  of  state,  itinerant's 

thought  of,  27 
"Consultations,"  213 
Cooperation     rapidly     growing 

among    denominations,    207- 

222 

Cooperative  creamery  and  store, 
72 

Corinthians,  Second,  xi.  26-29, 
quoted,  37 

Cornelius  and  Peter  incident, 
184,  1 86 

Cornell  University,  proposed  al- 
liance for  training  rural  pas- 
tors, 68 

Cotton  boll-weevil,  87 

Cotton,  growth  of  and  slavery, 
17;  King,  23 

Council  of  Women  for  Home 
Missions,  210 


INDEX 


261 


Country  store's  successor,  72 
County  Teachers'  Institute,  86 
Cumberland  Presbyterianism,  197 
Cutler,  Manasseh,  career  of,  31, 

D 

Dairy  industry,  49 

Darwinism,  misunderstood,  76 

Dates,  crucial,  5 

"Death  in  the  Desert,  A,"  225 

Debt  to  the  alien,  our,  119 

Degradation  in  Southern  high- 
lands, 78 

Democratization  of  wealth,  240 

Denominational,  colleges,  42 ; 
families  reuniting,  215;  move- 
ments explained,  16,  17 

Denominationalism  in  home  mis- 
sions, 199;  effects  of,  200,  201 

De  Tocqueville  alluded  to,  12 

Devoutness,  73 

Dewey,  Professor  John,  quoted, 
176 

"Dilution"  of  the  American 
element,  118,  126 

Divergences  and  the  bond  of 
peace,  246 

Douglass,  T.  O.,  Autobiography, 

?uoted,  19,  20,  48;  Pilgrims  of 
owa,  44 

Dowie,  John  Alexander,  sect 
founder,  197 

"Down-town"  church,  104 

Dry  farming,  51 

Drew  Theological  Seminary,  al- 
liance proposed,  for  training 
rural  pastors,  68 

Dunn,  A.  W.  quoted,  35 


Early  settlers,  the,  12 

Economic  processes  and  social 
control,  143,  144 

Eddy,  Mrs.  Mary  B.  G.,  sect 
founder,  197 

Education,  for  non-European 
peoples,  175,  176;  of  the  South- 
ern Negro,  173 


Education  in  the  United  States 
Since  the  Civil  War,  43 

Ely,  Richard  T.,  referred  to,  133 

Emotional  religion,  8 

English  language,  effect  of  teach- 
ing, 119,  120 

Episcopal  Church  and  missions, 
16 

Equality  not  necessary.  171 

Erie  Canal,  5;  effect  of  its  com- 
pletion, 21 

Eskimo,  the,  163 

Evolution,  of  a  city,  94-96;  of 
the  American  people,  82 

Evolution  of  the  Country  Com- 
munity, The,  49 


Faith  in  lowly  men,  234 

Far  West,  the  semi-arid,  24 

Farm  work  in  pioneer  times,  12; 
revision  of  methods,  75 

Farmer,  the,  13,  14;  and  the 
community  church,  n;  new, 
64;  vanishing  race,  6 1 

Fathers  feared  rather  than  loved 
by  many  country-bred  chil- 
dren, 74 

Federal  Council  of  the  Churches 
of  Christ  in  America,  134,  137, 
214;  social  creed  formulated, 
144 

Festivals  and  pageants  to  be 
used  in  rural  life,  74 

Fisher,  Dr.  F.  P.,  referred  to, 
221 

Florida  purchase,  the,  5 

Foreigners  in  U.  S.,  no;  assimi- 
lation of,  53;  churches  for,  105 

Forests  conquered,  prairies  en- 
tered, n 

Frontier  gone,  50,  61 


Gain,  facts  of  the  Church's,  108 
Garden  and  poultry  for  farm  boys 
and  girls,  75 


262 


INDEX 


Giddings,  F.  H.,  quoted  on  types 
of  mental  make-up,  219 

Give  and  take,  113,  119,  239 

Gladden,  Washington,  133 

Glove-factory  data,  95 

Grange,  the,  an  agency  in  the 
new  era,  73 

H 

Half -holiday,  for  country  young 
people,  75 

Hampton  Institute,  45 

Hand-power  and  horse-power,  12 

Harvard  and  Yale  and  Church 
control,  42 

Hawaiian,  the,  1 66,  1 68 

Health,  city  and  country,  97,  98 

Helm,  Mary,  quoted,  44 

Hindu  immigrant,  the,  164 

History  of  the  Pacific  Northwest,  6 

Holy  Rollers,  the,  81 

Home  Missionary,  quoted,  40 

Home  Missions,  early  form  and 
work  of,  3-48;  redirection  of, 
53-58;  now  applied  to  the 
country,  6 1-88;  serving  the 
city  and  stranger,  93-126; 
wide  social  bearings,  129-247 

Home  Missions  Council,  208, 
213 

Homesteading,  61-63 

Hookworm,  168 


Immigration,  changes  in  char- 
acter of,  112 

Inadequate  basis  for  missions,  82 

Indebtedness  to  the  alien,  our, 
119 

Indian  in  Relation  to  the  White 
Population,  The,  45 

Indians,  the,  5,  8,  61,  162,  168; 
missionary,  26;  missions,  45; 
reservation  opening,  51,  52 

Individuality  encouraged,   74 

Initiative,  46;  farm  boys  and 
girls  to  have  room  for,  75 

Inner  resources,  180 


Institutional  church,  the,  104 

Intensive,  moral  husbandry,  65; 
program,  69 

Interchurch  federations,   112 

International  Sunday  School  As- 
sociation, 211 

Iowa  Band,  the,  37,  42 

Irrigation,  50 

Itinerant,  the,  8,  26,  36 


Japanese    in    America,    165;    a 

possible  church,  218 
Jersey  prize  pig,  86 
Jesus  Christ,  58,  183;  interpret- 
ing religion  and  life.  153,  235; 
recognized    as    alone    Leader 
and  Head,  178,  222 
Jew  in  America,  the,  122,  123 
Joseph  Keasby  Brick  School,  84 
Justice,     machinery    of     social, 
lacking,  132 


Lack  of  men  in  social  service,  228 

Land  values,  62 

Landmarks  of  Western  expan- 
sion, 4,  5 

Language  differences,  246 

Language  group  churches,  105 

Lay  missionary,  the,  66 

Lay  preachers,  9,  18,  19 

Layman  and  his  purse,  the,  205 

Laymen's  Missionary  Move- 
ment, 210 

Leadership,  20,  65,  66,  71,  121; 
of  Jesus  Christ,  178 

Leavening  the  Nation,  15 

Lee,  Jason,  35 

Louisiana  purchase,  5 

"Lower"  races,  171 

Lumber  tracts,  79 

M 

McComas,  H.  C.,  220 
McCord,  Grandfather,   19 
Me  Kenzie,  F.  A.,  quoted,  45 


INDEX 


263 


Machinery    lacking    for    social 

justice,  132 
Madison,     Wis.,    a    center    of 

agricultural  education,  67 
Making  of  Our  Middle  Schools,  41 
Market,  the,  in  rural  redirection, 

73 

Marietta  Colony,  32 

Men  and   Religion  Movement, 

210 

Messianic  activities,  the,  153 
Methodism,  16 
Methodism  a  missionary  system, 

9 

Methodists  and  Baptists  among 
pioneer  missionaries,  81 

Methods,  early,  of  home  mission 
work,  n 

Mexican,  the,  166,  168 

Milk  and  the  farmer,  98 

Mill  town,  from  the  farm  to  the, 
82 

Miller,  William,  religious  orig- 
inator, 197 

Milliners'  windows,  73 

Mills  and  Schermerhorn's  report 
on  frontier  conditions,  9, 10, 39 

Mind  of  Primitive  Man,  The,  1 73 

Minister,  the  rural,  preparing, 
placing,  paying,  and  keeping, 
68-70 

Missionary  Education  Move- 
ment, 211 

Missionary  methods  change,  14 

Missionary  pastor,  36,  37,  122 

Missionary  Survey,  an  early,  9 

"Missions  at  home,"  236 

Missouri    River    missionary,    a, 

135 

Money,  ready,  a  need  of  farm 
boys  and  girls,  75 

Moral  issues,  53,  55 

Morals  and  milk,  49 

Monnonism,  50 

Morristown  Survey,  149 

Motive,  search  for  the  source  of, 
76,  77 

Mountain,  agriculture,  82;  com- 
munity, 78-82 


Moving    pictures    should    be   a 

factor  in  rural  recreation,  73 
Muscatine,  Iowa,  137-140,  141 
My  Pedagogical  Creed,  176 


N 


National  Survey,  204 
Near  at  hand  mission  field,  a,  89 
Neglected  fields  survey,  202 
Negro,  the,  83-88,  161,  168,  172, 
1 80,    182;    education    of    the 
Southern,  173;  farmers'  asso- 
ciation, 85;  jubilee  melodies, 
183;  missions  to,  45;  religious 
experience,    182;   service   for, 
122,  209 

New  Englander,  the,  20-22 
New  far-reaching  questions,  55 
New   Testament    religion,    225, 

233 

New  woman,  the,  180 

New  York  Federation  of  Church- 
es, 204,  205 

Non-European  peoples,  needs  of 
the,  175, 176,  236;  in  the  United 
States,  1 68 

North,  Dr.  F.  M.,  quoted  on 
pure  air,  98 

Norwegian  Sunday-school  super- 
intendent, a,  124 


O 


Ohio  Company,  the,  32 

Ohio's  early  settlers,  18 

Old  age  pensions,  151 

Open  gates,  our  duty  respecting, 

118 
O'Reilly's  tribute  to  the  Pilgrims, 

126 
Organization,  of  American  Home 

Missionary    Society,     15;    of 

early  Boards,  10,  1 1 
Oriental  exclusion,  164 
Our  Country.  35 
Our  national  unity,  116 


264 


INDEX 


Overchurching,  119-206 
Over-organization,  danger  of,  46 


Pacific  Northwest,  opening  of,  6 
Pathos  in  immigration,  112 
Pearl  buttons,  137 
Personal  experience  and  social 

service,  229 

Phillips  Academies,  the,  41 
Physiography  and  the  farmer,  51 
Picture  show  suggestions  to  aliens, 

115,  116 

Pilgrims  of  Iowa,  44 
Pioneers  in  forest  and  prairie, 

6-1 1 

Plantation  system,  23,  24 
Play,  value  of,  in  the  country, 

73-75 

Political  strife,  23 
Politics  and  service,  107 
Pond,  Dr.  William  C.,  122 
Populations,    non-European    in 

the  United  States,  168 
Porto  Rican,  the,  167,  168 
Porto  Rico,  209 
Prayer,  the  mystic  key,  231 
Presbyterian  Church,  n,  20 
Presbyterian  early  work,  9,  10, 

39 

Principles  of  Rural  Economics,  12 
"Problem  of  the  West,"  quoted, 

4 

Protestantism  and  labor,  103 
Psychology  of  Religious  Sects,  220 
Puritan  spirit,  the,  126 
Purse,  a  share  in,  the  right  of 

mothers  or  wives,  75 

Q 

Quakers,  17 

Questions,  new  far-reaching,  55 

R 

Race,  our  attitude  toward,  169, 
170 


Redemption  a  world-wide  task, 
237 

Redirection  of  home  missions, 
53-58 

"Regions  beyond,"  the,  3 

Religion,  the  farmer's,  13;  new 
application  of,  53 

Religious  education,  243 

Religious  experience  and  the 
Negro,  182 

Religious  Movements  for  Social 
Betterment,  45. 

Revival,  the  early,  8;  the  farm- 
er's, 14 

Rhode  Island  possible  new 
Church  adjustment,  204 

Rise  of  the  New  West,  7 

Rivalry,  church,  199 

Roads,  good,  a  community  asset, 
7i,  73 

Rochester  Theological  Seminary, 
proposed  alliance,  68 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  the, 
123,  124 

Ross,  E.  A.,  quoted,  161 

Rural  Economics,  51 

Rural  life  methods,  70-75; 
Church  and  state  in  agricul- 
tural processes,  76,  77 

Russell  Sage  Foundation  Social 
Service  Bulletin,  142 

Rutgers  College,  proposed  al- 
liance, 68 

Rutledge,  David,  wins  prize 
pig,  86 


Safeguarding  the  home,  44 
Sam  and  Sandro,  170 
Sanitation,  97,  98 
Saturation  point  in  immigration, 

117 

Schafer,  Joseph,  quoted,  6,  35 
School,  Church  ideal  in  the  early, 

40 
School    Improvement    Leagues, 

86 
Schoolmaster,  the,  22 


INDEX 


265 


Scientific  method  in  home  mis- 
sions, the,  57 

Scotch-Irish,  the,  18-20,  36,  80 
Seamless  robe,  a,  225 
Sectarianism,  192-199 
Sectionalism,  22 
Sects,  origin  of  American,  196, 

197 

Shacks  and  barbed  wire  in  secur- 
ing claims,  51 

Shortcomings  of  the  early  home 
mission  workers,  47 

Silsby,  Dr.  E.G.,  122 

Skyscraper  morality,  55 

Slavery  and  cotton-growing,  17, 

23-25 

Slavic  group  m  Vermont,  a,  246 
Smallpox  epidemic,  lessons  from 

a,  48,  49 
Smith,  Joseph,  sect  originator, 

197 

Social,  aim  and  by-product,  58; 
conscience,  159;  creed  of  the 
American  churches,  144,  145; 
engineer,  57;  frontier,  56; 
ideals,  147;  leadership  of  Jesus 
Christ,  232,  233;  misery,  157, 
159;  problem,  130;  sectarian- 
ism, 218;  service  of  Church 
and  state,  228,  229;  settlement, 
106,  107.  157 

Social  and  individual  redemp- 
tion, 54 

Social  Aspects  of  Foreign  Mis- 
sions, 211 

Social  Service  Secretaries,  Com- 
mission of,  137-140 

Social  types,  strange,  88 

Soldier's  Tennessee  land  grant, 
a,  129 

Solidarity  of  farm  life,  74 

South  Dakota,  cooperation  in, 
213 

Southern  settlers  in  the  West, 
18 

Speculator,  the  fanner  now  tends 
to  be  a,  62 

Spiritual  unity,  221 

State,  work  of  the,  76 


States,  admission  of  new  to  the 

Union,  5 
Statistics,  Church  in  the  United 

States,  198;  city  and  country, 

?"  93 

Strangers  and  the  Church,  109 
Strategy,  religious,  102 
Strong,  Dr.  josiah,  quoted,  34, 

45,  133,  134 

Success  of  the  Church,  the,  198 
Sunday-school,  the,  38;  library, 

40 
Sunday  School  Council  of  the 

Evangelical  Churches,   212 
Survey  method,  strong  approval 

of,  69,  137 

Survey,  The,  quoted,  133 
Sutton,    Professor    William    S., 

quoted,  173 


Taxpaying,  241 

Taylor,  G.  R.,  quoted,  133 

Team-haul  distance,  71 

Theological  and  agricultural  cen- 
ters, favorable  for  rural  pas- 
toral training,  67,  68 

Thinking  and  doing,  85 

Thwing,  C.  F.,  43 

Todd,  Pastor  John,  44 

Trapper  and  pioneer  as  vanished 
classes,  61 

Turner,  F.  J.,  quoted,  4, 7, 18, 23 

Types,  strange  social,  88 


U 

United  States  Bureau  of  Indian 
Affairs,  social  workers  of,  229 
University  of  Texas  Bulletin,  173 
Upward  Path,  The,  44 
Urbanized  humanity,  100 


Vices  of  the  frontier,  10;  pro- 
tection of  the  family  from  the, 
14 


266 


INDEX 


Vermont,   203;   cooperation   in, 

204,  206 
Vocational  education,  177 


W 

Washington  (Terr.)  and  the 
Yale  Band,  70 

Weekly  half -holiday.  See  Half- 
holiday. 

Wells,  Rev.  George  Frederick, 
suggestions  made  by,  203 

West,  the,  crucial  dates  for,  5; 
significance  of,  4;  versus  East, 
22 

Western  Reserve  Colony,  a,  34 

Whisky,   8 

Wilson,  Dr.  Warren  H.,  20,  49, 
50,  63 

Wisconsin,  federation  in,  212 


Woman,  aiding  in  Church  sup- 
port in  farmer  period,  14; 
educated  by  academies,  41; 
now  needing  in  country,  better 
guaranties  of  her  comfort,  re- 
sources, and  privileges,  75; 
status  and  habits  in  mountain 
community,  78-81 

Working  unity,  219 

Worship  and  play,  in  rural 
reconstruction,  73,  74 


Yale  Band,  the,  70 

Yankee  in  the  West,  the,  18-21, 
36 

Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation, 1 20,  207 

Young  Women's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation, 207 


Mission  Study  Courses 


"Anywhere,  provided  it  be  FORWARD." — David  Livingstone. 


Prepared  under  the  direction  of  the 
MISSIONARY  EDUCATION  MOVEMENT 

OF    THE   UNITED   STATES   AND   CANADA 


EDUCATIONAL  COMMITTEE:  G.  F.  Sutherland,  Chairman;  A. 
E.  Armstrong,  J.  I.  Armstrong,  Frank  L.  Brown,  Hugh  L. 
Burleson,  W.  W.  Cleland,  W.  E.  Doughty,  H.  Paul  Douglass, 
Arthur  R.  Gray,  B.  Carter  Millikin,  John  M.  Moore,  John 
H.  Poorman,  T.  Bronson  Ray,  Jay  S.  Stowell. 


The  Forward  Mission  Study  Courses  are  an  outgrowth  of 
a  conference  of  leaders  in  young  people's  mission  work,  held 
in  New  York  City,  December,  1901.  To  meet  the  need  that 
was  manifested  at  that  conference  for  mission  study  text- 
books suitable  for  young  people,  two  of  the  delegates,  Pro- 
fessor Amos  R.  Wells,  of  the  United  Society  of  Christian 
Endeavor,  and  Mr.  S.  Earl  Taylor,  Chairman  of  the  General 
Missionary  Committee  of  the  Epworth  League,  projected  the 
Mission  Study  Courses.  These  courses  have  been  officially 
adopted  by  the  Missionary  Education  Movement,  and  are 
now  under  the  immediate  direction  of  the  Educational  Com- 
mittee of  the  Movement.  The  books  of  the  Movement  are 
now  being  used  by  more  than  forty  home  and  foreign  mis- 
sion boards  and  societies  of  the  United  States  and  Canada. 

The  aim  is  to  publish  a  series  of  text-books  covering  the 
various  home  and  foreign  mission  fields  and  problems  and 
written  by  leading  authorities. 


The  following  text-books  having  a  sale  of  over  1,500,000 
have  been  published: 

1.  THE    PRICE   OF    AFRICA.     Biographical.      By    S.    Earl 
Taylor. 

2.  INTO  ALL  THE  WORLD.     A  general  survey  of  missions. 
By  Amos  R.  Wells. 

3.  PRINCELY  MEN  IN  THE  HEAVENLY  KINGDOM.    Biograph- 
ical.   By  Harlan  P.  Beach. 

4.  SUNRISE  IN  THE  SUNRISE  KINGDOM.    Revised  Edition. 
A  study  of  Japan.    By  John  H.  De  Forest. 

5.  HEROES  OF  THE  CROSS  IN  AMERICA.    Home   Missions. 
Biographical.     By  Don  O.  Shelton. 

6.  DAYBREAK  IN  THE  DARK  CONTINENT.    Revised  Edition. 
A  study  of  Africa.    By  Wilson  S.  Naylor. 

7.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CONQUEST  OF  INDIA.    A  study  of  India. 
By  James  M.  Thoburn. 

8.  ALIENS  OR  AMERICANS?    A  study  of  Immigration.    By 
Howard  B.  Grose. 

9.  THE  UPLIFT  OF  CHINA.    Revised  Edition.    A  study  of 
China.    By  Arthur  H.  Smith. 

10.  THE  CHALLENGE  OF  THE  CITY.    A  study  of  the  City. 
By  Josiah  Strong. 

11.  THE  WHY  AND  How  OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS.    A  study 
of  the  relation  of  the  home  Church  to  the  foreign  mission- 
ary enterprise.    By  Arthur  J.  Brown. 

12.  THE  MOSLEM  WORLD.    A  study  of  the  Mohammedan 
World.    By  Samuel  M.  Zwemer. 

13.  THE  FRONTIER.    A  study  of  the  New  West.    By  Ward 
Platt. 

14.  SOUTH  AMERICA  :  Its  Missionary  Problems.    A  study 
of  South  America.    By  Thomas  B.  Neely. 

15.  THE  UPWARD  PATH  :    The  Evolution  of   a  Race.    A 
study  of  the  Negro.    By  Mary  Helm. 

16.  KOREA  IN  TRANSITION.    A  study  of  Korea.    By  James 
S.  Gale. 

17.  ADVANCE  IN  THE  ANTILLES.    A   study   of   Cuba   and 
Porto  Rico.    By  Howard  B.   Grose. 

18.  THE  DECISIVE  HOUR  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS.    A  study 
of  conditions  throughout  the  non-Christian  world.    By  John 
R.  Mott. 

19.  INDIA  AWAKENING.    A  study  of  present  conditions  in 
India.     By   Sherwood  Eddy. 

20.  THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  OPEN  COUNTRY.    A  study  of  the 
problem  of  the  Rural  Church.    By  Warren  H.  Wilson. 

21.  THE  CALL  OF  THE  WORLD.    A  survey  of  conditions  at 
home  and  abroad  of  challenging  interest  to  men.    By  W.  E. 
Doughty. 


22.  THE  EMERGENCY  IN  CHINA.    A  study  of  present-day 
conditions  in  China.    By  F.  L.  Hawks  Pott. 

23.  MEXICO  TO-DAY:  Social.  Political,  and  Religious  Con- 
ditions.   A  study  of  present-day  conditions  in  Mexico.    By 
George  B.  Winton. 

24.  IMMIGRANT  FORCES.    A  study  of  the  immigrant  in  his 
home  and  American  environment.    By  William  P.  Shriver. 

25.  THE  NEW  ERA  IN  ASIA.    Contrast  of  early  and  pres- 
ent conditions  in  the  Orient    By  Sherwood  Eddy. 

26.  THE  SOCIAL  ASPECTS  OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS.    A  study 
of  the  social  achievements  of  foreign  missions.    By  W.  H. 
P.  Faunce. 

27.  THE   NEW  HOME  MISSIONS.    A   study  of   the   social 
achievements  and  social  program  of  home  missions.    By  H. 
Paul  Douglass. 

28.  THE  AMERICAN  INDIAN  ON  THE  NEW  TRAIL.    A  story 
of   the   Red    Men   of   the   United   States  and  the   Christian 
gospel.     By  Thomas  C.   Moffett. 

In  addition  to  the  above  courses,  the  following  have  been 
published  especially  for  use  among  younger  persons : 

1.  UGANDA'S  WHITE  MAN  OF  WORK.    The  story  of  Alex- 
ander M.  Mackay  of  Africa.     By  Sophia  Lyon  Fahs. 

2.  SERVANTS  OF  THE  KING.    A  series  of  eleven  sketches 
of   famous   home  and   foreign   missionaries.    By   Robert  E. 
Speer. 

3.  UNDER  MARCHING  ORDERS.     The  story  of  Mary  Porter 
Gamewell  of  China.    By  Ethel  Daniels  Hubbard. 

4.  WINNING  THE  OREGON  COUNTRY.    The  story  of  Marcus 
Whitman  and  Jason  Lee  in  the  Oregon  country.    By  John 
T.  Faris. 

5.  THE  BLACK  BEARDED  BARBARIAN.    The  story  of  George 
Leslie  Mackay  of  Formosa.    By  Marian  Keith. 

6.  LIVINGSTONE   THE    PATHFINDER.     The    story   of   David 
Livingstone.     By  Basil  Mathews. 

7.  ANN  OF  AVA.     The  story  of  Ann  Hasseltine  Judson  of 
Burma.    By  Ethel  Daniels  Hubbard. 

These  books  are  published  by  mutual  arrangement  among 
the  home  and  foreign  mission  boards,  to  whom  all  orders 
should  be  addressed  They  are  bound  uniformly  and  ar* 
sold  at  60  cents  in  cloth,  and  40  cents  in  paper ;  prepaid. 


New 

The  Whole  World  for  Its  Scope. 
Promotes  World  Peace. 
Cultivates  the  Missionary  Spirit. 

Unique 

Contains  True  Stories  of  Life,  Ac- 
tion, and  Bravery. 

Develops  High  Ideals. 

Describes  the  Customs  of  Peoples  in 
All  Lands. 

Attractive 

Bound   in   a   Beautiful,  Appropriate 

Cover  in  Colors. 
Abundantly  Illustrated  with  Original 

Drawings  and  Photographs. 
Printed     on     Excellent,    High-finish 

Paper. 

EVERYLAND  in  the  Home.  Why  not 
supplement  your  influence  among  boys  and 
girls? 

EVERYLAND  in  the  Sunday-school.  A 
rich  source  for  missionary  story  material. 
An  excellent  award,  Christmas,  or  birthday 
gift 

EVERYLAND  is  issued  quarterly,  sixty- 
four  pages  and  cover.  Subscription  price, 
50  cents  a  year,  10  cents  extra  for  Canada, 
and  20  cents  extra  for  foreign  postage. 

EVERYLAND,  156  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York  City 


ADULT  MISSION  STUDY  TEXT-BOOKS 

The  New  Home  Missions 

BY  H.  PAUL  DOUGLASS 

Dr.  Douglass  in  his  treatment  of  the  new  home  missions  displays 
a  masterly  knowledge  of  the  whole  social  program  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  the  United  States.  He  traces  the  expansion  of  home  mis- 
sions and  the  social  by-products  of  pioneer  effort.  He  shows  the 
new  social  program  necessary  in  rural  communities  and  city  centers. 
Two  chapters  deal  with  the  problem  of  social  justice  in  industrial 
life,  and  race  problems.  The  final  chapters  discuss  the  social 
reaction  of  home  missions  upon  the  Church  and  the  social  realiza- 
tion of  Christianity  in  America. 

India  Awakening 
BY  GEORGE  SHERWOOD  EDDY 

A  vital  discussion  of  many  of  India's  present  problems.  Mr. 
Eddy,  as  secretary  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  for 
India,  and  as  a  missionary  in  a  regular  station,  has  had  exceptional 
opportunity  to  study  all  phases  of  present-day  life  in  India  and  knows 
his  subject  as  few  other  men  do. 

The  Social  Aspects  of  Foreign  Missions 

BY  WILLIAM  H.  P.  FAUNCE 

Dr.  Faunce  has  packed  into  this  volume  his  observations  of  a 
world  tour.  In  his  introductory  chapters  he  treats  the  relation 
of  the  individual  to  society,  and  contrasts  the  social  life  of  the  East 
and  the  West.  Five  chapters  record  the  remarkable  social  achieve- 
ments of  Christian  Missions  in  non-Christian  lands.  In  the  dosing 
chapter  he  discusses  the  relations  of  the  East  and  the  West. 

Korea  in  Transition 

BY  JAMES  S.  GALE 

"Of  all  the  books  on  Korea,  the  body  of  this  one  by  Mr.  Gale, 
despite  his  learning  as  lexicographer  and  translator,  has  the  most 
red  blood  in  it.  It  pulses  on  every  page.  It  is  written  by  a  man 
whose  heart  overflows  through  his  pen  from  the  well  of  deep  ex- 
periences. Edited  with  skill,  and  ideal  for  purposes  of  study,  it  is 
the  best  presentation  of  Christian  Korea  in  our  language." 

— The  Independent. 

The  American  Indian  on  the  New  Trail 

BY  THOMAS  C.  MOFFETT 

Dr.  Moffett  is  the  recognized  authority  on  Indian  missions  in 
the  United  States.  He  writes  from  an  intimate  knowledge  based 
upon  actual  work  and  extensive  observation.  He  treats  race  rela- 
tionships, social,  moral  and  religious  conditions,  and  the  splendid 
results  of  education  and  the  Gospel.  One  chapter  is  devoted  to 
Alaskans.  The  book  contains  a  number  of  original  maps  and  statis- 
tical tables. 


The  Decisive  Hour  of  Christian  Missions 

BY  JOHN  R.  MOTT 

Dr.  Mott  probably  has  as  wide  an  acquaintance  as  any  man  of 
this  generation,  through  travel  and  observation,  with  the  present 
religious  condition  of  the  world.  These  discussions,  based  on  the 
reports  of  the  World  Missionary  Conference  held  in  Edinburgh, 
July,  1910,  constitute  the  latest  and  most  authoritative  presentation 
of  the  present  missionary  situation. 

The  Emergency  in  China 

BY  F.  L.  HAWKS  POTT 

Napoleon  said,  "When  China  moves,  she  will  move  the  world." 
Conditions  in  China  are  changing  so  rapidly  that  an  up-to-date  stu- 
dent will  welcome  the  clear  and  authoritative  survey  as  furnished  by 
Dr.  Pott  in  this  book.  The  manuscript  was  not  completed  until 
after  the  opening  of  the  Chinese  Parliament,  March,  1913.  It 
therefore  provides  a  statement  of  the  present  situation  and  fore- 
shadows the  future. 

Immigrant  Forces 

BY  WILLIAM  P.  SHRIVER 

This  survey  of  the  people  now  coming  to  the  shores  of  America 
emphasizes  the  contribution  of  the  immigrant  population  to  Ameri- 
can development  and  civilization.  It  also  suggests  the  opportunity 
of  the  Church  in  determining  the  future  of  these  new  citizens.  The 
best  and  most  up-to-date  book  on  the  subject. 

The  Church  of  the  Open  Country 

BY  WARREN  H.  WILSON 

Dr.  Wilson  is  superintendent  of  the  Department  of  Church  and 
Country  Life  of  the  Board  of  Home  Missions  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  and  is  recognized  as  the  foremost  leader  in  the  presentation 
of  practical  plans  for  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  country 
churches.  The  modern  economic  development  of  our  nation  has 
brought  the  church  face  to  face  with  the  seriousness  of  the  problem 
of  the  rural  community.  In  this  book  Dr.  Wilson  shows  that  the 
Church  has  a  fundamental  relation  to  the  development  of  modern 
country  life. 

Mexico  To-Day 
BY  GEORGE  B.  WINTON 

A  condensed  survey  of  Mexico,  with  emphasis  on  the  present. 
The  book  discusses  the  social,  moral,  educational,  political  and 
religious  conditions,  and  closes  with  a  statement  of  the  contribution 
Protestantism  is  making  in  the  solution  of  Mexico's  problems. 

Price,  cloth,  60  cents;  paper,  40  cents;  postpaid. 


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